Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

TREATMENT ALLOWANCES.

Captain BOWYER: 1.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether he is aware of the hardship caused to disabled men by the present strict interpretation of Article 6 (i) of the Royal Warrant as it relates to treatment allowances; that there are 35,000 disabled men receiving out-patient treatment, and of these only 9,000 are receiving treatment allowances despite the fact that the number of the remaining 26,000 are unable to work because of their war disability; and what steps he proposes to take in the matter?

The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. Roberts): I fear that the hon. and gallant Member has misinterpreted the figures which have been supplied to him. At the end of March the total number of disabled ex-service men in receipt of treatment of any kind other than inpatient treatment was 35,000, but of this number not 9,000 but 14,500 men were in receipt of allowances at the maximum rate of pension under Article 6 (i) of the Royal Warrant. Moreover, allowances may be and are made in other cases to cover occasional loss of remunerative time involved by out-patient treatment. This form of treatment, which is administered in the main through clinics set up by my Department, is as far as possible arranged by way of evening sessions and otherwise in such a manner as to involve the minimum of inconvenience to patients.

APPEALS (ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE).

Captain BOWYER: 2.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether he can now inform the House what steps he proposes to take to deal with those cases of pension where the appeal to the tribunal has been unsuccessful, but where additional evidence has been produced which clearly shows that an error of judgment has been made?

Mr. ROBERTS: The best method practicable to enable such cases to be dealt with has been under most careful consideration, and I expect very shortly to be able to inform the House more fully on the matter.

Captain BOWYER: Will the hon Gentleman remember particularly those cases where the final award has been made, and from which there is no further right of appeal, and where the man, in fact, finds after the final award that he is no better than he was at his last medical board?

Mr. ROBERTS: Yes, Sir. Full consideration has been given to that point, but I will take further note of what the hon. and gallant Gentleman has said.

DEPARTMENTAL LETTERS (STATISTICS).

Mr. BECKER: 3.
asked the Minister of Pensions the number of letters which were despatched to the Post Office by his Department during the last 12 months?

Mr. ROBERTS: I regret I have not available the figures for the whole of the Ministry throughout the United Kingdom, but I can inform the hon. Member that the number of letters despatched for delivery by the Post Office from headquarter offices in London was approximately 11,380,000 for the year ended the 31st March last.

Mr. BECKER: Does that mean the hon. Gentleman's Department has no idea of the number of letters they send to the Post Office? Does it mean they send them out regardless of cost?

Mr. ROBERTS: No, Sir. We have a full record, but the collection of these figures would mean an investigation of every area office throughout the country, and that would not be possible.

Mr. E. BROWN: Is it not a fact that the absence of these statistics is largely due to the anti-waste campaign of two years ago?

Mr. HANNON: Is it not the fact that all this correspondence is not necessarily in the interests of the ex-service men?

FINAL AWARDS.

Brigadier-General SPEARS: 4.
asked the Minister of Pensions when he will be in a position to make a statement to the House as to whether or not it is his intention to revise the final awards Regulations in view of the great hardship and injustice inflicted by these Regulations in their present form?

Mr. F. GOULD: 14.
asked the Minister of Pensions what steps are now being taken to deal with the final awards regulations; and whether we may expect an early announcement respecting the same?

Mr. ROBERTS: I am glad to say that the arrangement to which I have referred in previous answers by which, with the sanction of the Treasury, I am enabled to amend errors of final awards is already in effective operation. What amendment, if any, of the Regulations is necessary will be determined by further experience of the existing procedure. There will be no avoidable delay in settling this question.

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: 13.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether he can now make a statement regarding the position of those pension cases in which pension appeal tribunals have found that a final award should not have been made; and whether he proposes to take any action in those cases where there is a fixed rate of disablement of 6 to 14 per cent.?

Mr. ROBERTS: As already announced in the reply given to the hon. Member for Birkenhead West (Mr. Egan), on the 6th instant, instructions were issued last month which provide that in all cases in which the Assessment Tribunal has set aside a final award the officer or man concerned shall be re-examined, as soon as possible after the decision of the tribunal by a medical board, with a view to the award of any further compensation which his condition may justify. This procedure applies to all cases irrespective of the rate of assessment on which the award was based.

MEDICAL OFFICERS (INSTRUCTIONS).

Lieut.-Colonel WOODWARK: 6.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether instructions are, or have been, given to the medical officers of the Ministry of Pensions at hospitals or on boards to consider and, wherever possible, to lower the pensions of pensioners?

Mr. ROBERTS: No, Sir. No such instruction has been issued by my Department. Perhaps I may be allowed to add that in more than 25 per cent. of all the cases examined during the past four months the assessment for pension purposes has actually been increased.

Major TRYON: Is it not the case that instructions to medical boards to give the benefit due to all pensioners were issued by my predecessor, and were in force during my time?

Mr. ROBERTS: Yes, Sir.

ADVISORY COUNCILS.

Mr. E. BROWN: 10.
asked the Minister of Pensions the composition of the newly proposed advisory councils on war pensions?

Mr. ROBERTS: The scheme for the constitution and procedure of the new advisory councils is at present in draft, and is the subject-matter of discussion at the series of conferences which I am holding in certain important centres, with representatives of war pensions committees. I may say, however, that it is intended that the new councils shall include one representative appointed on the nomination of each war pensions committee in the area covered by the council, together with direct representatives of disabled ex-service men, widows and dependants.

Oral Answers to Questions — EX-SERVICE MEN.

GRANTS TO WIDOWS.

Brigadier-General SPEARS: 5.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether he will consider the immediate restoration to the Special Grants Committee of the power to make grants to widows of ex-service men who are suffering from serious and prolonged illness?

Mr. ROBERTS: As I announced last week, I am glad to be able to inform the hon. and gallant Member that the Government
are prepared to authorise the making of grants by the Special Grants Committee to widows and children in cases of hardship due to serious and prolonged illness, under suitable conditions, the details of which will be settled in conjunction with the Treasury.

Captain TUDOR REES: Will the hon. Gentleman take steps to make this provision known?

Mr. ROBERTS: I take it that the fullest publicity is given by the answer to a question across the Floor of the House and the subsequent publication.

Captain BOWYER: Will that arrangement include widows who are not widows under the terms of the Royal Warrant.

Mr. ROBERTS: I should like notice of that question.

MENTAL CASES (DEPENDANTS).

Mr. LANSBURY: 7.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether he is aware that the dependants of ex-service men suffering from mental disability, whose cost of maintenance has now been accepted by his Department from boards of guardians, are still chargeable to the Poor Law and thus forced to accept assistance as paupers; and will he reconsider his decision and accept full and complete responsibility not only for the men concerned but also for their wives and dependents?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. William Graham): As my hon. Friend is aware, the cases in question are those in which after repeated examination it has been decided that the disability is in no way connected with War service. While I have every sympathy with the dependants in question, I do not see how the Government could accept responsibility for them without doing the same for the dependants of all ex-service men whose physical disabilities have been found to be in no way due to War service.

Mr. MACPHERSON: Is it a fact that these men are still in the same public asylums as they were in during the time of my predecessor in office and myself?

Mr. GRAHAM: That is a matter for the Ministry of Pensions. I should think
the majority of them are, but of course that was not the point of the question. The real point was the transfer of the liability for their maintenance.

Mr. LANSBURY: Will the Treasury not consider that, as they have removed these men from chargeability to the guardians and taken them over, it is just as wrong to put the wives and children in the position of paupers as to put the man who is insane in the position of a pauper?

Mr. MACPHERSON: Is it not the fact that every Minister of Pensions has considered this case with sympathy, and has found that if he gave in on this particular disability, he would have the same thing to do with regard to every other disability.

Mr. LANSBURY: Does not the hon. Gentleman know that the disability has been removed in this case by the Ministry of Pensions and a definite liability accepted for the cost of the men; why not do the same for the wives and children?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should put down a further question on that point.

UNEMPLOYMENT.

Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKE: 81.
asked the Minister of Labour whether, with a view to ascertaining the numbers of ex-officers and others of similar educational qualification who are totally unemployed, he will cause inquiries to be made through the officers' branch of the British Legion and other organisations engaged in the work of charitable relief of this class of man?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Miss Bondfield): From preliminary inquiries already made, my right hon. Friend has little hope of being able to obtain the information required in the manner suggested, though if he finds it to be practicable, he will gladly do so. The number of ex-officers and ex-service men of similar education who are registered with the Appointments Department and whose unemployment is regarded as being due to their War service is 2,680, as compared with 4,585 at the end of December last.

Oral Answers to Questions — OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Sir CHARLES BARRIE: 11.
asked the Minister of Pensions if he is aware that, under the Old Age Pensions Act, when a contributor reaches the age of 70 years he must cease work before he can derive any benefit from the Act; if he is aware of cases in which persons continuing to work after the age of 70 years, who have been taken ill, have been refused sickness benefit; and whether he will consider the desirability of removing this restriction?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. A. Greenwood): My right hon. Friend does not quite understand the first part of the hon. Member's question, unless it is intended to refer to the present statutory means-limit for the receipt of an old age pension. As regards the second part of the question, the title to sickness and disablement benefits under the National Health Insurance Acts ceases on the insured person attaining the age of 70 when the liability for the payment of contributions also ceases. The extension of these benefits to persons over 70 years of age would necessitate an increase in the weekly contributions, and would present serious administrative difficulties to approved societies in the application of the test of incapacity for work. My right hon Friend does not, therefore, think it desirable that legislation to this effect should be introduced.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE (BLIND PERSONS).

Sir C. BARRIE: 12.
asked the Minister of Pensions if he is aware that, under the National Health Insurance Act, should a person become incapacitated but nevertheless be able to do light work he is unable to draw any weekly allowance on account of performing light duties, and that this has been applied to people who are incapacitated by blindness; and will he introduce legislation to remove this disability in such cases?

Mr. GREENWOOD: An insured person who has, through blindness or any other cause, been rendered permanently incapable of following what was formerly his normal occupation is not entitled to continue to receive sickness or disablement benefit under the National Health Insurance Acts after he has become capable of
following some other remunerative occupation which is reasonably open to him, either at once or as the result of a course of training. My right hon. Friend does not think it desirable to introduce legislation to enable benefit to be paid to persons who are undertaking remunerative work.

Sir C. BARRIE: Does the hon. Gentleman not think a distinction might be made in the cases of blind persons?

Mr. GREENWOOD: The point of the answer, is I think, that it could not well be made under the National Health Insurance Act.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

MINISTRY OF PENSIONS.

Mr. MIDDLETON: 18.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether he is aware that the proposed reduction in hours of work in area offices will result in the lowest paid staff making the greatest monetary sacrifice while the higher paid staff will suffer no loss of pay, and that the staff associations agreeing to the reduction in hours do not represent the staffs in area offices; and whether he will postpone the operation of the memorandum issued by his Department, under which the hours of work in these offices will be reduced as from the 24th May to 42 hours a week, until such time as he has received a deputation appointed by a representative meeting of the staffs concerned under the auspices of an association which does represent their views?

Mr. ROBERTS: The reduction in the working hours of the temporary clerical grades employed in London was introduced at the instance of the staff associations concerned, and the effect of this reduction on pay was clearly understood by all parties. For the sake of uniformity in the Ministry offices in London as well as for the reason that it will result in the continued employment of men who would otherwise be discharged, it has been decided to introduce, as from the 24th instant, the new hours in the area offices situate in the London postal area. I regret that I am unable at this date to suspend my decision, but I shall be happy to receive at any time representations from the associations who were parties to the arrangement.

Sir HARRY BRITTAIN: 19.
asked the Minister of Pensions what is the number of his staff now employed at the Pensions Issue Office at Acton; and what available accommodation is there in the building for other Ministries?

Mr. ROBERTS: The staff of my Department employed in the Acton premises at the present time numbers 4,264, of whom 3,400 are attached to Pension Issue Office. There are, in addition, a number of members of the staff of the Ministry of Health. The concentration of certain branches of the Ministry of Pensions into these premises is in progress, and other buildings are being surrendered in consequence. I am informed by my right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works that he does not anticipate that for some time to come there will be space in the building to accommodate further staff from other Departments when the present concentration is completed.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how big a staff the Ministry of Health have there?

Mr. ROBERTS: No: I have not that information.

POSTAL SERVICES.

Mr. BECKER: 54.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will instruct the Departments during the current year to estimate with their annual expenditure the cost of delivering their letters by the Post Office, so that the Post Office can receive this amount as revenue?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Philip Snowden): Estimates of the cost of postal services to Departments are appended to the Estimates of all Departments and are also summarised in an appendix to the Post Office Estimate. The value of the services rendered is credited to the Post Office in the Commercial Accounts. The suggestion that Departments make actual payments is contrary to the general principles of public accounting and would not, so far as I can see, offer any advantage whatever.

Mr. BECKER: Is this not really a book entry crediting the Post Office with the amount of service rendered to other Departments, and could he not use this money to reduce postage rates?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I should not have the money, because I have to provide for it in the Estimates, and the expenditure of the Departments would be increased.

Mr. STURROCK: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the reduction in the rate of postage is being delayed by reason of the fact that the Post Office is not generally credited with the amount of work it does for other Departments of the State?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I am not aware of that.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why the Post Office should be expected to reduce its rates to pre-War prices when private enterprise keeps them up by 75 per cent.?

Oral Answers to Questions — BORSTAL SYSTEM.

Captain T. REES: 20.
asked the Home Secretary whether he is able to state the proportion of Borstal inmates who revert to a career of crime alter their release from that institution?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Arthur Henderson): The only information readily available on this point will be found on pages 34 and 35 of the Prison Commissioners' Report for the year 1022–23, of which I am sending the hon. and gallant Member a copy.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRISONERS FROM NORTHERN IRELAND (GREAT BRITAIN).

Mr. DUNNICO: 21.
asked the Homo Secretary the number of prisoners from Northern Ireland now confined in the prisons of England and Scotland; whether all these have been brought to trial, and, if not, how many have not been; and what are the financial arrangements made with the Government of Northern Ireland under which these prisoners are held?

Mr. HENDERSON: There are 73 prisoners and 10 Borstal inmates from Northern Ireland at present detained in prisons in England and Wales. I am informed that the number of such prisoners detained in prisons in Scotland is 62. All of these prisoners have been brought to
trial. The whole cost of maintaining these prisoners (including the cost of conveyance from and to Northern Ireland) is recovered from the Government of Northern Ireland.

Mr. HAYES: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Home Secretary has to accept the responsibilty for the safe care and custody of these prisoners while they are in his jurisdiction?

Mr. HENDERSON: That is a question of which I should require notice.

Mr. STEPHEN: Can the right hon. Gentleman not send these prisoners back to Northern Ireland?

Mr. HEALY: What seeps does the right hon. Gentleman propose to take to compensate the many hundreds of Nationalist refugees driven from Northern Ireland?

Oral Answers to Questions — LIQUOR TRAFFIC (STATE CONTROL).

Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS: 22.
asked the Home Secretary the policy of the Carlisle Liquor Control Department with regard to redundant houses?

Mr. HENDERSON: The large reductions already made in the number of public houses in the Carlisle district has left but little scope for further reductions. The policy of closing houses on the score of redundancy will, however, be continued so far as opportunity offers.

Mr. ROBERTS: Is the right hon. Gentleman's policy to let or to sell redundant houses? If it is to sell, is he aware that a certain public house has recently been let to the Carlisle Labour party, and that the name of that house is the "Lion and the Lamb"?

Oral Answers to Questions — DERBY DRAW (BOOTLE TRADES COUNCIL).

Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: 23.
asked the Home Secretary whether there is any intention of taking proceedings in regard to the Mammoth Derby Labour Subscription Draw, promoted by the Bootle Trades Council and Labour Party, tickets for which are advertised as being circulated amongst organisations affiliated to the Labour party only?

Mr. HENDERSON: I am informed by the Chief Constable that he has arranged to caution the principal promoters that this sweepstake is illegal, and that further action will expose them to proceedings. I gather that tickets are being sold to the public.

Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: Did the chief constable arrange to caution the other people who have been prosecuted, and whose correspondence has been seized, on a similar charge?

Captain Viscount CURZON: Is the action which the right hon. Gentleman is taking in this case exactly the same as, or is it different in any particular from, the action taken in respect of the Conservative Club at Otley?

Mr. HENDERSON: I am not aware that there is any difference in the treatment of the two cases.

Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: Was the Conservative Club at Otley cautioned in the same way as this Mammoth Bootle organisation has been cautioned?

Viscount CURZON: Are you pinching their letters?

Mr. FOOT: If no proceedings are taken by the police locally, will the right hon. Gentleman exercise his power and himself institute proceedings in a higher Court?

Mr. HENDERSON: I am prepared to treat this case as the other case has been treated. I am not going to make any distinction, whatever be the colour of the party concerned.

Oral Answers to Questions — ALIENS (NATURALISATION).

Mr. HANNON: 28.
asked the Home Secretary the number of foreigners naturalised in Great Britain in each year since the beginning of 1919, and in the first four months of 1924?

Mr. HENDERSON: I would refer the hon. Member to my answers to similar questions by the hon. Members for Kidderminster (Mr. Wardlaw Milne) and the Epping Division (Sir L. Lyle) on the 13th March and the 15th of this month. The number of certificates of naturalisation granted in 1919 was 1,417; in 1920, 2,013; in 1921, 1,053; in 1922, 735; and in 1923, 1,125. The figure for the first four months of 1924 is 325.

Oral Answers to Questions — CRIMINAL LAW.

Mr. MONTAGUE: 29
asked the Home Secretary whether it is intended to advise the setting up of a Royal Commission to inquire into the consolidation and amendment of the various branches of the criminal law of England and Wales and to prepare draft Bills relating thereto or, alternatively, to prepare a criminal code fo England and Wales which shall amend as well as consolidate the ciminal law?

Mr. HENDERSON: There is no intention at present to advise the setting up of such a Royal Commission.

Oral Answers to Questions — THAMES BRIDGES.

Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: 31
asked the Home Secretary whether the Metropolitan police have received any instructions to prevent the overcrowding of vehicular traffic upon Westminster Bridge, or whether the police authorities, in consultation with the engineering experts of the London County Council, are satisfied that the fabric of the bridge is capable of safely bearing any stress that may be imposed upon it, and that no special regulation of the traffic is therefore necessary?

Mr. HENDERSON: No special instructions have been given to the Metropolitan police to prevent overcrowding of vehicular traffic upon Westminster Bridge but, with a view to relieve congestion, in the communiqué issued to the public as to alternative routes consequent upon the closing of Waterloo Bridge, drivers have been induced, as far as possible, to avoid Westminster Bridge and make use of Vauxhall. The London County Council are the Highway and Bridge Authority for Westminster Bridge, and they recently informed the police that no special restriction of traffic was required in the case of Westminster Bridge.

Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: Has the right hon. Gentleman satisfied himself that these enormous weights imposed upon the bridge are safe?

Mr. HENDERSON: I am afraid I have not.

Mr. MARCH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the London County Council are taking precautions to see if it is safe by having engineers to investigate it?

Oral Answers to Questions — ELECTORAL REGISTERS (DESIGNATION OF WOMEN).

Mr. THURTLE: 32.
asked the Home Secretary if he is aware that the rolls of electors for Scottish counties, except the county of Stirling, contain an indication as to the appropriate form of address for each woman elector, by having printed before each name the word Mrs. or the word Miss, as the case may be; and will he, therefore, for the convenience of political parties and with a view to establishing equality in this matter as between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, instruct registration agents in England and Wales to have similar information included in their registers of electors?

Mr. HENDERSON: I am aware of the practice in Scottish constituencies; but it is estimated that the alteration of the registers in England and Wales to include the information referred to would cost upwards of £70,000, and I do not consider that this large expenditure would in the circumstances be justified.

Mr. THURTLE: Does my right hon. Friend agree that in this matter there ought to be uniformity of practice as between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, because we have to bear the expense of this procedure in Scotland?

Mr. HENDERSON: That would require consideration.

Mr. STURROCK: Is it not the duty of the local Members to know exactly the designation of all the electors?

Oral Answers to Questions — MRS. HELEN CRAWFORD.

Mr. LANSBURY: 33.
asked the Home Secretary by whose authority Mrs. Helen Crawford was arrested by officers connected with the Special Branch of the Criminal Investigation Department at Manchester on Monday last; why was she released; will he explain why this action was taken without first obtaining a warrant from the magistrate; and why, after arrest, Mrs. Crawford was not taken before the bench of magistrates?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 30.
asked the Home Secretary if he is aware that police officers of the Special Branch in plain clothes arrested Mrs. Helen Crawford at her hotel in Manchester on Monday morning last; why she was
arrested and on what charge; and why she was afterwards released without being brought before a magistrate?

Mr. HENDERSON: The information that I have obtained from the Manchester Police, of whom I have made inquiry, is to the following effect. It is not the case that Mrs. Crawford was arrested. I am informed that the facts are that two officers of the local police wished, in the course of their duties under the Aliens Order, to see the passport of an alien lady staying in the hotel, and on being told that she was one of a group of ladies about to leave the hotel, approached the group and asked for her by name. Mrs. Crawford stated that she was the lady, and when asked to show her passport appeared to search for it in her bag; but while she was doing so the police officers were able to satisfy themselves that she was not the alien lady in question, and they then left the hotel. There was no question of arrest, and any inconvenience Mrs. Crawford may have been occasioned was the direct result of her own incorrect statement to the police. As regards the reference to officers of the Special Branch, I am informed definitely by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that no such officers were on duty in Manchester during the period in question.

Viscount CURZON: Another mare's nest!

Oral Answers to Questions — METROPOLITAN POLICE (NIGHT TRAFFIC REGULATION).

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 35.
asked the Home Secretary whether every member of the Metropolitan Police Force has yet been provided with white overalls or white gloves to assist him in the regulation of traffic at night?

Mr. HENDERSON: White gloves are already in use by police performing traffic duty in the inner divisions of the Metropolitan Police District, and arrangements have been made to extend the issue to men so engaged in the outer divisions. White overalls are not used.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that three months ago he promised that this should be done at once, and that several of these police
stations have only one pair of white gloves, and are entirely gloveless when that odd pair goes to the wash?

Viscount CURZON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that no less than 78 city and borough authorities throughout the country already put their police forces into white overalls, and why cannot he do the same?

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION.

SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

Colonel Sir CHARLES YATE: 36.
asked the President of the Board of Education what is the cost of the sanction of the applications from local education authorities in Wales for the abolition of fees in secondary schools that have already been granted by him; and, if all local education authorities in the country avail themselves of his offer to sanction the general abolition of fees in secondary schools, how he intends to find the money to replace the £3,000,000 now derived from fees in existing grant-earning schools?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Trevelyan): The total amount of fees in those Welsh secondary schools in which I have sanctioned the abolition of fees is £4,413 10s.; the cost of their abolition will fall as to one-half on the Board's Vote, and as to one-half on the local authorities. The second part of the question is hypothetical.

Sir C. YATE: Do the local authorities agree to pay this extra money?

Mr. TREVELYAN: The local authorities have asked my permission to remit the fees.

Sir C. YATE: 37.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether, in removing the restriction on free places in secondary schools, and giving school authorities liberty to raise the percentage of free places in these schools to 40 per cent., he has taken into consideration the cost involved in sending pupils from elementary to secondary schools who do not complete their time; and will he state what is the estimated amount of money wasted annually in this way?

Mr. TREVELYAN: It is impossible to estimate the cost to public funds involved in premature withdrawals from secondary schools. The matter is one that is
continually engaging the attention of the board and the authorities of the schools, and the figures at my disposal show a steady improvement. Premature withdrawals are less frequent among free-place than among fee-paying pupils.

Sir C. YATE: Will the right hon. Gentleman take care to send into the secondary schools those who are likely to benefit by the teaching by remaining the whole time?

Mr. TREVELYAN: Every effort is made to get children who will stay the full time, and they are staying the whole time more and more as time goes on.

CADET CORPS.

Mr. AYLES: 38.
asked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that in certain schools receiving grants from the Board, where there is a recognised cadet corps or officers training corps, every scholar is compelled to join or else to resign from the school; and whether he will take steps to inform such schools that no scholar who desires to remain outside this corps is to be penalised?

Mr. TREVELYAN: I have not had my attention called to any case of a school in receipt of grants from public funds where compulsion of the kind referred to in the question is practised.

SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION, NORTHUMBERLAND.

Mr. SMILLIE: 40.
asked the President of the Board of Education if he is aware of the lack of school accommodation at Linton and Lynmouth, Northumberland; and will he give the reason why the building of permanent schools in these districts is not being proceeded with?

Mr. TREVELYAN: I am aware of the facts stated in the question. A difficulty has, however, arisen in the acquisition of sites for the new permanent schools owing to a considerable discrepancy between the values placed on the sites required by the district valuer and the local education authority's advisers, and in the circumstances the authority are having recourse to their powers of compulsory purchase under Section 111 of the Education Act, 1921. I regret that there should have been several months of delay
owing to the slow working of the present machinery for the acquisition of land needed for public purposes, but I hope the delay is nearly at an end. In the meantime, the Board have approved the provision by the authority of additional temporary public elementary school accommodation at Ellington.

Oral Answers to Questions — AIRSHIP SCHEME.

Mr. WELLS: 41.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he will circulate a Parliamentary Paper showing in detail the expenditure involved at Cardington on the Government airship scheme; and will he state the numbers that the Government propose to employ?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Mr. Leach): I hope to deal with the question of expenditure at Cardington and, so far as possible, the numbers to be employed there, when introducing the Supplementary Estimate for Airships next week.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. HOARE: Will the Under-Secretary issue a White Paper giving particulars?

Mr. LEACH: I hope to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions — AIR "DEATH RAY."

Mr. EMLYN-JONES: 42.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether his attention has been called to the invention known as the death ray; whether he is aware that a French syndicate has been formed with a view to the acquisition of the patent; and whether he will take steps at once to ascertain the value of the patent from the point of view of aerial defence and prevent its passing out of British hands?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 43.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether his attention has been called to the invention of a so-called death ray stated to be of potential value in aerial warfare; whether the Air Ministry has taken any steps to invite the inventor to demonstrate his invention; if so, what opinion has been formed of it; and what steps are being taken to secure any benefit from this invention to His Majesty's forces?

Mr. GREENE: 90.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to an invention known as the death ray, by means of which the engines of hostile aeroplanes can be stopped and explosives ignited; whether he is aware that the inventor has failed to find a purchaser of the invention in this country and that he is about to sell it to a foreign firm; and whether he will take steps to have the invention tested with a view to purchase by the nation before it shall have been acquired by a foreign firm or Power?

Mr. LEACH: My attention has been called to the claims made for the invention referred to, and the Air Ministry is in touch with Mr. Grindell-Matthews. But for the present it is inadvisable to make any full statement upon the matter.

Mr. LORIMER: Was this invention offered to the British Government?

Mr. LEACH: I cannot answer that.

Mr. GREENE: Does the hon. Gentleman admit that this invention will, in all probability, be more effectual in repelling hostile aircraft than all babbling-beatitudes and high moral gestures?

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: Are the Government taking steps to prevent the use of this diabolical device?

Mr. MONTAGUE: Has the inventor shown a very high moral attitude in the matter?

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE.

FLYING OFFICER JONES (FATAL ACCIDENT).

Sir CHARLES CAYZER: 44.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether a Court of Inquiry has yet inquired into the circumstances under which Flying-Officer Jones met his death in a flying accident in Flintshire recently; and whether, in this case, he can state what the finding of the Court was?

Mr. LEACH: Yes, Sir, a Court of Inquiry has met and has reported. The report has been received at the Air Ministry, but has not yet been fully considered. The proceedings and findings of such Courts are always treated as confidential in all three Services, being made for the information of the Department
only, and I regret I cannot undertake to state the finding in this case; but if the hon. Member will allow me I will let him know in due course the conclusions reached by the Air Council as to the cause of the accident.

Sir C. CAYZER: What steps have the Ministry taken to ensure, in future, the safety of the officers: that they shall not fly before being qualified to do so?

Mr. LEACH: All necessary steps are taken to ensure the safety of the officers; our precautions in this respect are more stringent than in any other country in the world.

Oral Answers to Questions — FINANCE BILL.

MCKENNA IMPORT DUTIES.

Mr. LORIMER: 45.
asked the Prime Minister if he will give the names of any employers of labour in South Derbyshire who have had petitions against the removal of the McKenna Duties signed under duress?

48. Lieut.-Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALL: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of his statement on 13th May that the Government had proof that the petitions signed by various bodies of workmen against the abolition of the motor-car duties had been signed under duress, he will arrange for the evidence in the Government's possession to be published?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I have been asked to answer these questions. The answer to both questions is in the negative.

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the names of any firms whose workers have actually signed under the circumstances stated?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I have already said that we do not propose to give the names of any workmen who have written to us explaining the conditions under which these petitions were signed.

Sir F. HALL: In my question I ask whether the Government have proof, and the right hon. Gentleman has said that "the reply is in the negative." If the Government have no proof, they have no right to make the statements that have been made to the House of Commons.

Mr. SNOWDEN: The question of the hon. and gallant Gentleman asks whether we will arrange for the evidence to be published, and my reply is, "No."

Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Had the right hon. Gentleman one single case when he made the statement the other day, and is this part of his raging propaganda against the McKenna Duties?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I may say that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. A. Chamberlain) was questioned at a public meeting last Friday and—according to the newspaper report—expressed some doubt as to the genuineness of one particular case to which I referred, and asked me to give particulars of the case. I have seen the right hon. Gentleman and have offered to put before him confidentially particulars of the case.

FOOD PRICES (CONTROL).

Mr. WHITELEY: 40.
asked the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation this Session for the purpose of controlling the food prices in the country in order that the community may not be deprived of the advantages of any reduction in taxation on articles of food?

The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Mr. Clynes): The Government see no ground at present for fearing that the community will be deprived of the advantages of reduction of taxes on foodstuffs. I understand that there has been a general fall in retail prices of the dutiable articles by the full amount of the recent reductions of duty. In the circumstances no legislation of the character indicated by my hon. Friend appears at present to be necessary.

Mr. WHITELEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, notwithstanding the reduction in taxation, potato prices and the price of butter have gone up?

Mr. CLYNES: I cannot accept that view that prices have gone up as a result of reduced taxation; indeed, it is known that these charges and variations in prices have been due to other causes over which the Government have no control, such as the purchases in foreign markets.

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman also aware that bacon and cheese are also rising?

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: And butter?

SWEETENED TABLE WATERS DUTY.

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: 58.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the abolition of the duty on sweetened table waters will effect any reduction in the price of single bottles; and when any such reduction will be made?

Mr. SNOWDEN: As regards the first part of the question, I would refer the hon. Member to the statement I made on the subject on opening the Budget. As regards the second part of the question, I would refer him to the reply given to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Twickenham on the 13th May.

Sir K. WOOD: Does the right hon. Gentleman's reply mean that these individual manufacturers are not making the reductions, and that nothing has been done to give effect to these proposals?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I do not see that the individual manufacturers could make any reduction at present, because the reduction in the tax has not taken place.

Mr. BECKER: What provision was made in the Budget statement to take the tax off sweetened mineral waters which are sold at ice-cream soda fountains?

INCOME TAX AND SUPER-TAX (ARREARS).

Mr. HANNON: 62.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the arrears of Income Tax and Super-tax remaining unpaid on 31st March, 1924, and the arrears which, for the purposes of his Budget, he anticipates will remain unpaid on 31st March, 1925?

Mr. SNOWDEN: As regards arrears at the 31st March, 1924, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply (of which I am sending him a copy) given on the 15th April to a question by the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. H. H. Spencer). The Budget Estimates take account of many factors, including a forecast of the amount of arrears at the 31st March, 1925, but I should be rash at present to give a quantitative measurement to each separate factor.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND INDUSTRY (COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY).

Mr. CHARLES EDWARDS: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the anxiety as to the continued depression in trade, the Government will appoint a Committee to inquire into the present condition of the industry and commerce of Great Britain, and into the factors influencing its expansion?

Mr. CLYNES: Yes, Sir. This matter has been engaging the attention of the Government for some time. They feel that an inquiry sufficiently limited in its scope to be definite in its results, and yet sufficiently wide to be really enlightening, ought to be held. The terms of reference are being carefully considered, and I hope shortly to be able to announce them.

An HON. MEMBER: Another Committee!

Oral Answers to Questions — LEGITIMACY BILL.

Mr. VIANT: 47.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Government propose to proceed with the Legitimacy Bill which has come down from another place?

Mr. CLYNES: The Government would welcome a Second Reading being given to this Bill; but they regret that they cannot grant it any special facilities.

Oral Answers to Questions — AEROPLANES (MAXIMUM SPEED).

Viscount CURZON: 50.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air what is the maximum air speed of the fastest fighting aeroplane in the service of the British, French, American, Italian, and Japanese Air Forces?

Mr. LEACH: It is undesirable to publish comparisons between the relative performances of British and foreign fighting aircraft.

Viscount CURZON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the machine used by the young French officer who is attempting to fly round the world is faster than any machine we have got in our service by more than 25 miles an hour?

Mr. LEACH: The whole matter is receiving our very careful attention.

Oral Answers to Questions — HENDOX (FLYING PAGEANT).

Sir H. BRITTAIN: 52.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air what opportunities have been arranged by the Air Force for Dominion visitors to see something of that arm of the Service during the period of the British Empire Exhibition?

Mr. LEACH: It has not been possible, in the absence of a suitable aerodrome, to arrange for a flying display at Wembley itself, but Hendon is not very far distant, and I hope that visitors from the Dominions will take advantage of the opportunity of the Pageant which is to be held there on 28th June to see some thing of the Royal Air Force at work.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: Is it not a fact that the hon. Gentleman has arranged for special displays by the Air Force for specific groups of Dominion visitors?

Oral Answers to Questions — AIR TREATY (CZECHSLOVAKIA).

Mr. HANNON: 53.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to renew the provisional Air Treaty between the British and Czechslovakian Governments for the establishment of an air line between London and Prague which expired on 31st March; and, if not, whether it is proposed to conclude any other arrangement with the Czechslovakian Government in this respect?

Mr. LEACH: It is the intention of the Government to enter into a permanent air agreement with Czechslovakia as soon as it appears that the difficulties to which I referred in my reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull on 1st May are likely to be removed.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Do the German Government still adhere to the view they then took?

Mr. LEACH: Yes; negotiations are in progress.

Mr. B. TURNER: When is the Government going to take up the policy of stopping this hellish campaign of competition in air services in warfare?

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT SURPLUS WAR STORES (DISPOSAL).

Mr. DUNNICO: 55.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the amount
received by the Treasury from the sale of war stores during the five years ending April, 1924, and the amount allocated during that period to the reduction of the National Debt?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by me on the 13th May to the hon. Member for Harborough, of which I am sending him a copy.

Oral Answers to Questions — BANK AMALGAMATION.

Mr. DUNNICO: 56.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, seeing that Treasury sanction has been given for the absorption of the Guernsey Commercial Banking Company by the Westminster Bank, Limited, and the absorption of Messrs. Child and Company by Messrs. Glyn Mills, he is aware that the organised labour movement of this country has placed on record its concern at the prospect of a huge bank trust; will he state on what grounds these amalgamations were approved of by the Advisory Committee; and if he will state, for the information of the House, the personnel of this committee?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I am aware of the fears to which the hon. Member refers, and as I stated the other day amalgamations of the larger banks are not likely to be viewed with favour. Of the two transactions mentioned in the question one was of quite minor importance and the other tends to strengthen an independent group outside the five big banks. The hon. Member may be assured that all applications for amalgamation are very carefully considered both by the Treasury and the Board of Trade and by the Advisory Committee, the members of which are Lord Inchcape and Lord Colwyn.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMY OFFICERS (COMPULSORY RETIREMENT).

Lieut.-Colonel MEYLER: 57.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the total cost of the compulsory retirement of officers from the Regular Army under the system introduced by the Geddes Commission; and whether any saving has been effected by this action, seeing that many officers holding temporary
commissions are still employed on duties which might have been carried out by the regular officers who have been retired?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Stephen Walsh): I have been asked to reply. The amount paid in gratuities to the officers in question was £1,458,850 and the total of the annual rates of retired pay allowed to them is £167,485. It is not possible to calculate how much more these officers would have cost the State if they had not been retired, as such a calculation would necessarily depend on details that are entirely hypothetical, but the reduction in the annual cost of the Army of which these compulsory retirements were unfortunately a necessary part is many times larger than any of these figures. No officer who was compulsorily retired was qualified to carry out the duties on which any of the temporary officers at present retained are engaged.

Lieut.-Colonel MEYLER: Did not the right hon. Gentleman himself only yesterday say that the regular officers are quite capable of carrying out all the duties which the temporary officers are carrying out at the present time?

Mr. WALSH: I am not aware that I said anything of the kind. I said, and I have repeated it several times, that these particular duties are of such a character that the regular officers could not, in my opinion, and I have gone very carefully into the matter, carry them out.

Lieut.-Colonel MEYLER: Would not the regimental officer be capable of carrying out the duties of the Summary Court Officer in Cologne, which are now being carried out by temporary officers without any legal qualifications whatever?

Oral Answers to Questions — IRELAND.

ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY FORCE FUND.

Lieut.-Colonel HOWARD-BURY: 60.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the present condition of the benefit branch of the Royal Irish Constabulary Force Fund; how much is paid into this fund yearly; how many subscribers are there still; and whether there is any reason why this fund should not be wound up?

Mr. HENDERSON: I have been asked to reply to this question. The latest statement of account is for the financial year, 1922–23. I am sending the hon. and gallant Member a copy of this statement. The number of subscribers at present is 3,700, and their yearly subscriptions amount to about £3,200. The question of winding-up the fund has been carefully considered, but any scheme for the immediate distribution of the assets would be contrary to the interests of the widows and orphans for whose benefit the fund is intended. I will send the hon. and gallant Member a copy of the Report made by the Government actuary last year on this question.

RELIEF OF DISTRESS.

Mr. RONALD McNEILL: 61.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that an appeal is being made for funds for the relief of distress among persons in Ireland who have suffered, and are suffering, on account of their loyal attachment to the British Crown; and whether, following the precedent of the recent Vote by this House of £5,000 for the relief of distress in Albania, he will introduce a supplementary Estimate for a like sum to be given as a contribution towards relief of distress in Ireland?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Thomas): I have been asked to reply. I have been in communication with the Free State Government regarding specific cases of apparent hardship which have been brought to my notice, and I am always willing to give what assistance I can. But I regret that I cannot ask the House to vote a contribution to the private fund referred to by the right hon. Gentleman. I may mention that as far as personal injuries are concerned His Majesty's Government, in accordance with their undertaking under the Treaty, have paid approximately £3,000,000 in compensation to Crown supporters, and that the Irish Grants Committee, besides granting relief to the extent of over £40,000 to refugees from the Irish Free State, have also, in the exercise of their very wide terms of reference, been the means of affording considerable assistance to persons (other than refugees) with statutory claims.

Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the victims
of the recent Queenstown outrages have received full compensation?

Mr. HEALY: Has the right hon. Gentleman communicated with the Northern Government of Ireland concerning the large number of refugees from Northern Ireland?

Mr. SPEAKER: That question does not arise.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

MILK PRICES.

Mr. BECKER: 64.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will approach the milk combine with a view of ascertaining the prices paid for milk from the producer and the prices charged to the consumer?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of AGRICULTURE (Mr. W. R. Smith): The operations of the company to which the hon. Member refers are, in the main, confined, so far as the distribution of liquid milk is concerned, to the London area, and the price paid to producers is usually determined in accordance with an annual contract the terms of which have been agreed between the representatives of producers and distributors. At the present time the price paid to producers, subject to the conditions of the contract, is 1s. per gallon delivered to buyer's station. The usual retail price in the London area is 2s. per gallon.

Mr. BECKER: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that that margin of profit is too much?

COLONIAL PRODUCE.

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: 65.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will consider the advisability of completing the investigations of the Linlithgow Committee, by instituting an inquiry into the prices and methods of distribution of Colonial produce in this country?

Mr. SMITH: My right hon. Friend does not think that an inquiry limited to Colonial produce is necessary, but he is proposing to appoint certain officers to investigate methods of marketing agricultural products in this country, and it is anticipated that their inquiries will include the methods of distribution of imported produce. My right hon. Friend hopes it will be possible to publish from time to time reports on this subject.

Mr. WHITE: Could the hon. Gentleman state off-hand whether any representations have been received from the representatives of the Overseas Dominions on this point?

Mr. SMITH: I cannot answer that question.

FOOT-AND MOUTH DISEASE.

Sir GRATTAN DOYLE: 66.
asked the Minister of Agriculture the number of fresh outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in the Newcastle area, with the names of the farms or places where they occurred; and what steps are being taken to deal with the situation?

Mr. SMITH: As the reply is long and contains a number of figures, I propose, with the hon. Member's permission, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Sir G. DOYLE: Could the hon. Gentleman say if there have been any fresh cases notified within the last week?

Mr. SMITH: I could not answer offhand.

Following is the reply prepared:

Of the seven recent outbreaks confirmed in the Newcastle area, two occurred in farms near the city and the remainder in slaughterhouses within the city. Prior to the first of these outbreaks on the 12th of May, there had been no outbreak in Northumberland since the 24th of March. Details of the premises on which they occurred are given below:

Date of Confirmation, Name of Owner and the Place where the Disease has been found to exist.

12th May.—Dixon Bros., East Coldcoats Farm, Ponteland, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
13th May.—John Deas, No. 2. Slaughterhouse, Old Yard, Dispensary Lane, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
14th May.—John Edwin Glaholm, 9, Marlborough Crescent, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. (Disease at M. Deas, No. 1, Slaughterhouse, Old Yard, Dispensary Lane, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.)
14th May.—Nos. 4, 6 and 13, Slaughterhouses, Cattle Market, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
14th May.—John Edwin Glaholm, No. 12, Slaughterhouse, 2, Old Yard, Dispensary Lane, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
2404
15th May.—M. Beaford and Sons, Nos. 9 and 15, Slaughterhouses, Cattle Market, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
20th May.—A. and T. Turner, Cheviot View, Westerhope, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. (Disease at Newbiggin Hill Farm, Westerhope, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.)

With regard to the last part of the question, affected animals and immediate contacts have been slaughtered as usual and the premises disinfected. In addition, the Newcastle local authority have had over 100 slaughterhouses in Newcastle disinfected practically simultaneously. I would add that these outbreaks were brought to light by a combined campaign of inspection by the Ministry and the local authority, owing to a suspicion that cases of foot-and-mouth disease were being dealt with by slaughter in slaughterhouses within the city and not reported. The Ministry's efforts are still being hampered by delays or failures to report cases of the disease.

AGRICULTURAL WAGES BILL.

Mr. HOBHOUSE: 67.
asked the Minister of Agriculture the approximate number of agricultural workers who will come within the provisions of the Agricultural Wages Bill?

Mr. SMITH: The most recent information in regard to the number of agricultural workers is that furnished in the agricultural Returns collected on 4th June last year. These Returns showed that there were employed on that date, on holdings of over one acre in England and Wales, 625,000 regular workers and 147,000 casual workers. These numbers may be taken as indicating the minimum number of workers covered by the provisions of the Agricultural Wages Bill, but I may point out that the number of casual workers varies considerably at different periods of the year.

Mr. BLUNDELL: Do these figures include members of farmers' families?

Mr. SMITH: I could not say off-hand.

Mr. E. BROWN: Do they include women workers?

Mr. SMITH: I think this is the total.

Oral Answers to Questions — GLOVES IMPORTED.

Mr. HOGGE: 70.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the number and value of imports of gloves from Italy, Czechslovakia and Germany for the years ending 31st December, 1923 and 1921?

THE following Statement shows for the Calendar Years 1921 and 1923 the Imports of Gloves into the United Kingdom registered as consigned from Italy, Czechslovakia and Germany respectively:—


Description.
Imports into the United Kingdom.


Consigned from Italy.
Consigned from Czechslovakia.
Consigned from Germany.


Quantity.
Value.
Quantity.
Value.
Quantity.
Value.



Year ended 31st December, 1921.



Doz. prs.
£
Doz. prs.
£
Doz. prs.
£


Gloves:—








Of leather
33,884
66,966
18,205
46,849
31,088
42,315


Of woven fabric:—








Silk
—
—
100
125
19,641
29,868


Other
—
—
2,652
4,501
122,215
110,576


Knitted, netted or crocheted:—








Of cotton, or of which the chief value is cotton.
—
—
5,930
8,934
530,968
483,010


Of wool, or of which the chief value is wool.
—
—
1,890
1,341
3,540
1,784


Of other textile materials
—
—
—
—
9,231
8,733



Year ended 31st December, 1923.



Doz. prs.
£
Doz. prs.
£
Doz. prs.
£


Gloves:—








Of leather
294,751
414,035
21,495
60,868
19,195
33,343


Fabric Gloves:—








Of cotton, or of which the chief value is cotton.
15
23
60,292
61,326
953,943
541,645


Of other textile materials
—
—
7,539
13,373
32,650
20,845


Other descriptions:—








Of wool, or of which the chief value is wool.
—
—
74,710
40,094
44,414
21,390


Of other textile materials
100
100
1,591
918
28,329
18,977


NOTE.—As from 1st April, 1923, the expression "United Kingdom" does not include the Irish Free State. Particulars for 1921 classified in the same manner as those recorded for 1923 are not available.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMODITIES (PRICES).

Mr. BAKER: 69.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the high rates of dividend which have been declared in the past three years by prominent London stores; that two have

Mr. LUNN: The answer involves a tabular statement, which, with the permission of the hon. Member, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following in the statement:

declared 20 per cent. each year, one 17½, 18, and 20 per cent., another 14, 20 and 25 per cent., another 10, 15 and 20 per cent. on a capital which had been increased by a 900 per cent. share bonus in 1920, that others paid 25, 22½ and 25
per cent., and 12, 16 and 18 per cent., respectively; whether, in view of these facts, he will expedite a decision as to the setting up of a Committee, on the lines of the Departmental Committee on Distribution and Prices of Agricultural Produce or the Coal Advisory Committee of the Mines Department, on the possibility of effecting economies in the costs that make up the price of coal to the consumer, to inquire whether the spread between the producers' and consumers' prices in the matter of clothes, grocery and such articles is not unjustifiably wide; and whether distributive costs could not be reduced by reorganisation under public ownership?

Mr. LUNN (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): I would refer to the answer which was given to the hon. Member on 8th May, to which I have at present nothing to add. The question is receiving the continued consideration of the Board of Trade.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES (SUBSIDIES).

Mr. FRANKLIN: 71.
asked the Minister of Health the amount paid by the Exchequer in the years 1920, 1921, 1922 and 1923 to make up the annual loss on housing schemes after the 1d. rate had been paid by the municipal authorities; what was the average amount paid in respect of the Exchequer's share of loss per house in each of those years; and, in making out this average, will he differentiate between those houses completed in each year since the assumption of this liability by the Exchequer?

Mr. GREENWOOD: The subsidies paid to local authorities in respect of the 1d. rate housing scheme in the years referred to are as follow:—



£


1920
…
…
…
…
2,475


1921
…
…
…
…
2,264,272


1922
…
…
…
…
6,451,484


1923
…
…
…
…
7,910,146





£


1920
…
…
…
…
2,475


1921
…
…
…
…
2,264,272


1922
…
…
…
…
6,451,484


1923
…
…
…
…
7,910,146


My right hon. Friend regrets that he is unable to give the information asked for in the second and third parts of the question, as there is no material available for calculating the deficit on houses completed
year by year separately from the deficit on partly completed houses.

GOVERNMENT PROPOSALS.

Mr. E. BROWN: 72.
asked the Minister of Health if he will now state when he proposes to introduce the new housing proposals and to lay financial papers?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to a similar question by the hon. Member for the West Division of Woolwich (Sir K. Wood) yesterday.

TOWN PLANNING.

Mr. SUNLIGHT: 73.
asked the Minister of Health if, with his proposals for building 2,500,000 houses during the next 15 years, adequate steps have been taken in his Department to lay down regional plans to cover the whole country and not left to the individual interest of local authorities, with a view to avoiding congested housing areas in the future as towns expand?

Mr. GREENWOOD: My right hon. Friend is encouraging the formation of Regional Town Planning Committees, and good progress has been made, but he does not think that it is necessary at the moment to attempt to cover the whole country.

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: Is it the intention to employ architects in setting up these schemes?

Mr. GREENWOOD: These committees are joint committees of local authorities.

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: Will the Government housing scheme be accompanied by any proposals with regard to town planning?

Mr. GREENWOOD: I would rather the Noble Lord waited for the Bill.

BUILDING TRADE (APPRENTICES).

Mr. SUNLIGHT: 77.
asked the Minister of Health what understanding, if any, he has arrived at with the employers in the building industry that, to ensure the carrying out of the scheme of augmentation of labour by apprentices in carrying out the housing programme, the conditions will equally be fulfilled on building work other than houses?

Mr. GREENWOOD: My right hon. Friend understands that the proposal of the Committee of Building Employers and Operatives is that their apprenticeship scheme shall apply both to housing and other building work.

Viscount WOLMER: When is the hon. Gentleman going to get some more men in the building trade?

Lord EUSTACE PERCY: May I ask how far the committee of building employers represented the small speculative builder?

Mr. BLUNDELL: Is it not the fact that this combine does not represent small builders at all? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer!"]

ALLOTMENTS.

Mr. EDMUND HARVEY: 78.
asked the Minister of Health whether, in connection with the new housing proposals of the Government, provision will be made to assist local authorities for the purchase of land for allotments?

Mr. GREENWOOD: No, Sir.

Mr. SPEAKER: called upon Sir K. Wood to put Question No. 79.

Mr. HARVEY: Does the hon. Gentleman consider it possible to get satisfactory rural housing conditions if there is no provision for allotments?

Mr. SPEAKER: I have called the next Question.

Oral Answers to Questions — ENCEPHALITIS LETHARGICA.

Sir GEORGE BERRY: 74.
asked the Minister of Health if, in view of the fact that the disease known as encephalitis lethargica has recently become prevalent, and of the nature of that disease, he is prepared to have a special investigation instituted as to its cause?

Mr. GREENWOOD: My right hon. Friend is not clear as to the nature of the special investigation which the hon. Member has in mind, but I may say that investigations as to the nature and cause of this disease, by officers of his Department and of the Medical Research Council, have been proceeding for some time past, and are being energetically pursued at
the present time. Constant touch is also maintained with research workers abroad who are engaged in special investigations into this disease.

Captain EDEN: Is there to be an investigation with regard to the Ministry of Labour?

Oral Answers to Questions — LUNATICS (MAINTENANCE GRANT).

Mr. EMLYN-JONES: 75.
asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to a resolution parsed by the guardians of Shaftesbury on the 15th May, urging that the practice of paying an annual grant in respect of the maintenance of lunatics in accordance with a claim to be made annually in September should be reverted to; and whether he will take steps in this respect?

Mr. GREENWOOD: My right hon. Friend has received a copy of the resolution referred to. He understands that the local authorities generally would object, on the ground of expense and labour, to a return to the old system of calculating the grant, and he is considering what action can be taken to provide another basis of calculation.

Oral Answers to Questions — POOR LAW RELIEF (HEALTH INSURANCE BENEFIT).

Mr. C. EDWARDS: 76.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has received a letter from the clerk to the Bedwelty Guardians complaining of the increasing number of persons admitted into the guardians' institutions who are entitled to receive benefit under the National Health Insurance Act, but which benefit cannot be claimed by the guardians towards their support; and will he take steps to amend the Act so that a portion of such benefit may be claimed towards their maintenance whilst in the institution?

Mr. GREENWOOD: My right hon. Friend has received the communication referred to by the hon. Member, and he would refer him to the reply given on 6th May to a similar question by the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. S. Robinson).

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL PRICES (CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES).

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: 79.
asked the Secretary for Mines whether he has met representatives of the co-operative societies on the question of the price of coal; whether he has asked them to supply facts and figures of their trading in this connection; and when the same will be available to the House?

The SECRETARY for MINES (Mr. Shinwell): I met representatives of the co-operative societies on Thursday last. They gave me information about the price, quality and method of distribution of domestic coal, and supplemented their oral replies to my questions by written statements. The whole of the facts and figures are now under examination in my Department. I shall be glad to make them available to the House as soon as the necessary work on them is completed.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

FISHERMEN-(GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE).

Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: 82.
asked the Secretary for Scotland whether he is now in a position to make a statement as to the provision of nets and fishing gear for the Scottish drift-net fishermen; and, if so, when his proposals will come into operation?

84. Mr. MacKENZIE LIVINGSTONE: asked the Secretary for Scotland whether, in view of the immediate need for assistance for the crofter fishermen of the Western Isles, he will now make his promised statement and, if possible, put into operation forthwith a scheme by which these men may obtain the necessary nets and fishing gear without which they will be unable to participate in this season's fishing?

The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Adamson): The Government have given careful consideration to the representations made by Members from all parts of the House, by discussion, by deputation and by question, in favour of a scheme for assisting the drift-net fishermen with loans for the purchase of nets in order to tide them over the present emergency. Such a scheme presents considerable difficulties of various kinds. In dealing with the matter, however, the Government have had in view the fact that the position of these fishermen is very exceptional,
and that it is a case of meeting a special and non-recurrent emergency by a temporary scheme. In these circumstances the Government have decided to ask Parliament to pass a Supplementary Estimate to enable loans to be granted to herring fishermen in Scotland for the purchase of herring nets. The matter is one of great urgency, and I hope that the House will give the necessary facilities and will agree to suspend the Eleven o'Clock Rule for the purpose of passing this Supplementary Estimate. The Supplementary Estimate will be presented at an early date. The loans will be on the general basis of 50 per cent. of the cost of the nets. The detailed terms of the scheme will be issued by the Fishery Board for the information of fishermen as soon as possible.

Mr. MACPHERSON: When do the Government propose to introduce the Estimate?

Mr. ADAMSON: The Supplementary Estimate will be presented at an early date.

Mr. MILLAR: Will the right hon. Gentleman state the total amount that the Government have in view in introducing the Supplementary Estimate, and what machinery will be provided in order to carry out the scheme?

Lieut.-Colonel LAMBERT WARD: Will this loan be confined to Scottish fishermen, seeing that there is considerable distress amongst English fishermen, who have also suffered from bad times?

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Yarmouth and Lowestoft are also important herring-fishing centres, and that they have suffered?

Mr. MACPHERSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is highly important that these loans should be given to the fishermen now; and will he anticipate the Estimate, as is quite customary, in order that the fishermen may get their gear and pursue their calling?

Lieut.-Colonel WARD: May I have a reply to my question?

Mr. ADAMSON: It is difficult to deal with this matter by question and answer. The Estimate will be for £150,000. All I can say to the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. A. M. Samuel) is that I do not happen to be secretary for Yarmouth.

Mr. FOOT: Will the right hon. Gentleman, when he introduces his Supplementary Estimate, have regard to the West Country fishermen, whose circumstances are abnormal, inasmuch as their nets have been destroyed by wrecks.

Lieut.-Colonel WARD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, although he may not be secretary for Yarmouth, he will have to rely upon the votes of hon. Members for those constituencies if he wishes to get his Supplementary Estimate through?

MINE DISASTER, PLEAN, STIRLINGSHIRE.

Mr. T. JOHNSTON: 83.
asked the Secretary for Scotland if, in view of the time that has clapsed since the mining disaster at Plean, Stirlingshire, he can expedite the legal proceedings, without a decision on which compensation cannot be claimed; and whether he is aware that several of the dependants have exhausted the allocation from the voluntary fund and are now in destitution owing to the long delay in the settlement of their claims?

Mr. ADAMSON: I presume my hon. Friend refers to the proceedings in the Sheriff Court for contraventions of the Coal Mines Act. The case has already been twice before the High Court on appeal, and is now put out for a hearing by that Court on the 6th of June. I have no power to expedite these proceedings, but I am not aware that they interpose any legal obstacle to the making of a claim for compensation. As regards the second part of the question, I have no information.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Will my right hon. Friend explain how it is possible for the victims of mining disasters such as this to exist for 2½ years before they can get their compensation?

ILLEGAL TRAWLING (WESTERN ISLES).

Mr. LIVINGSTONE: 85.
asked the Secretary for Scotland what steps have actually been taken this year to protect the fishermen of the Western Isles against the depredations of illegal trawlers; and what steps have been taken towards equipping the fishery cruisers with wireless?

Mr. ADAMSON: A regular patrol of the waters off the coasts of the Western
Isles has been maintained by the Fishery Board's cruiser service with, I believe, satisfactory results, and complaints of illegal trawling in these areas have been few in number this year. The hydroplane attached to the fishery cruiser "Minna" has proved very serviceable in increasing the effectiveness of the patrol. Wireless equipment has now been installed experimentally on the "Minna" and, if the results on that vessel are satisfactory, the question of equipping other cruisers with wireless apparatus will be considered.

Oral Answers to Questions — TREATY OF LAUSANNE.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir EDWARD GRIGG: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can now give the House any information with regard to the publication of papers upon the negotiations and signature of the Treaty of Lausanne?

Mr. THOMAS: Correspondence with the Canadian Government on the subject will be laid on Monday next.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. BALDWIN: May I ask the Deputy Leader of the House what will be the business for next week, and whether he can give us any information as to the date on which he expects to adjourn for Whitsuntide?

Mr. CLYNES: With respect to the second question, the Government do not anticipate that it will be possible to adjourn before Friday, 6th June, in which case they will propose that the House should reassemble on Monday, 16th June.
The business for next week will be:
Monday: Education (Scotland) (Superannuation) Bill, Report and Third Reading; Unemployment Insurance, Money Resolution, in Committee of the whole House, and War Charges (Validity) (No. 2) Bill, Report.
Tuesday: Finance Bill, Second Reading.
Wednesday: Air Supplementary Estimate (Airship Service) in Committee of Supply; China Indemnity (Application) Bill, Second Reading, and if time permit, County Courts Bill, Report.
Thursday: Supply; Vote for the Ministry of Transport.

Mr. BALDWIN: Does the right hon. Gentleman expect to get the Finance Bill in one day?

Mr. CLYNES: I thought that was commonly understood, if not accepted, on account of previous statements.

Mr. MASTERMAN: Is the Finance Bill yet printed and circulated, and, if not, will the right hon. Gentleman have it printed and circulated this week, and not leave it till next week?

Mr. MACPHERSON: Is it the intention of the Government to allocate time after 8.15 on Monday to the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Superannuation Bill.

Mr. CLYNES: I understand that the Finance Bill will be in the hands of hon. Members without delay. As to the other point, the Government are not able to determine that matter.

Mr. BALDWIN: Will the Debate on the Preference Resolutions be taken before Whitsuntide, or after?

Mr. CLYNES: It has been our hope to allot a day for the discussion of the Preference Resolutions next week, but I am not certain yet whether it can be done, having regard to the urgency of other matters.

Mr. MACPHERSON: May I ask the Chairman of Ways and Means whether it is proposed to take the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Superannuation Bill on Monday at 8.15?

Mr. SPEAKER: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will look at the Order Paper. He will see there Postponement till Monday next at a quarter past eight will be proposed." That is a notice to the House.

Mr. MACPHERSON: I asked the question because the Government's business appears to be so enormous on Monday that I thought this Bill might once again be postponed.

Mr. SPEAKER: If the Bill is set down for 8.15 by the Chairman of Ways and Means, it takes precedence over Government business.

Mr. STURROCK: On a point of Order. Why was it that this Bill, which was down
on the Paper for to-night, has been postponed, when hon. Members had arranged to be here specially for it?

Mr. SPEAKER: That question is wholly in the discretion of the Chairman of Ways and Means.

Mr. STURROCK: Is it not the duty of the Chairman of Ways and Means to allow the House to know the course of business which is going to be taken?

Mr. SPEAKER: He has done that by putting the notice on the Paper.

Mr. P. HARRIS: When is the Report stage of the London Traffic Bill likely to be taken?

Mr. CLYNES: I am afraid it cannot be taken this side of the Whitsuntide Recess.

Mr. EMLYN-JONES: When is it the intention of the Government to introduce the Agricultural Wages Bill?

Mr. CLYNES: Not before the Whitsuntide Recess.

Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: When are we to have the Estimate for the gear for Scottish fishermen?

Mr. CLYNES: On that subject, I hope to be able to make an announcement on Monday.

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: Will any declaration be made about the Housing Bill before Whitsuntide?

Mr. CLYNES: Yes. We hope to be able to give a day for the introduction of that Bill before Whitsuntide.

SOUTHERN RAILWAY BILL.

Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

SMALL DEBT (SCOTLAND) BILL.

Reported, without Amendment, from the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.

Bill, not amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Monday next.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) (SUPERANNUATION) BILL.

Reported, with an Amendment, from the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 139.]

SITTINGS OF PARLIAMENT.

Ordered, That the Evidence taken before the Select Committee on House of Commons (Procedure), of Session 1914, be referred to the Joint Committee on Sittings of Parliament.—[Mr. F. Hall.]

FACTORIES BILL,

"to consolidate, with amendments, the enactments relating to factories; and for purposes connected therewith," presented by Mr. HENDERSON; supported by Mr. Rhys Davies; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 140.]

STANDING COMMITTEES.

Ordered, That all Standing Committees have leave to print and circulate with the Votes the Minutes of their Proceedings and any amended Clauses of Bills committed to them.—(Mr. William Nicholson.)

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have agreed to,

Rawtenstall Corporation Bill, with Amendments.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers on the undertakers of the Aire and Calder Navigation in relation to their undertaking; to extend the time for the completion of certain authorised works: and for other purposes." [Aire and Calder Navigation Bill [Lords.]

AIRE AND CALDER NAVIGATION BILL [Lords].

Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

STANDING COMMITTEE B.

Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee B: Lady Terrington; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Dodds.

Report to lie upon the Table.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

[9TH ALLOTTED DAY.]

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. ENTWISTLE in the Chair.]

CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1924–25.

CLASS VII.

MINISTRY OF LABOUR.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £8,560,339, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1925, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Labour and Subordinate Departments, including the Contributions to the Unemployment Fund, and to Special Schemes, and Payments to Associations and Local Education Authorities for administration under the Unemployment Insurance Acts; Expenditure in connection with the Training of Demobilised Officers, Noncommissioned Officers and Men, and Nurses; Grants for Resettlement in Civil Life; and the Expenses of the Industrial Court; also Expenses in connection with the International Labour Organisation (League of Nations), including a Grant in Aid."—[Note: £5,500,000 has been voted on account.]

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Mr. T. Shaw): The right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks) desired to speak first, but I represented to him that I thought it would be better if I stated the Government policy, in order that the Committee may be fully aware of all the facts. With his customary courtesy, he at once agreed to that course. I thank him for the courtesy, and will now deal with the Estimates. It would be unwise to pretend to make a long speech on the Estimates, because the Committee is no doubt, waiting to hear something about unemployment.

Captain Viscount CURZON: We have been waiting four months.

Mr. SHAW: I will skip over very rapidly the principal items in the Estimates, and will then come to the horses. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rabbits!"]
Hon. Members will get something before I have finished. On page 42 of the Estimates, it will be seen that the gross total was £16,187,005 last year, and this year it is £14,060,339, a decrease of £2,126,666. The Committee will forgive me if the rest of the sums mentioned I merely use round figures, instead of giving the small items. The largest item in the Vote is that with regard to contributions to the unemployment fund and to special schemes, a total of £12,827,000. The contributions in the total, amount to about £36,000,000 from employers and workers and £12,827,000 from the State, which has to be added to the £36,000,000 contributed by the employers and the workers.
The next groups of figures, on pages 41, 42 and 65, to which I wish to call attention, refer to services arising out of the War. The figures show a reduction as compared with last year's of, roughly, £1,750,000. This reduction is due to the fact that the schemes are coming to an end. There are now 1,511 men on the waiting list for industrial training as far as Great Britain is concerned.
On page 40 will be found the cost of the administration. This Vote bears a total for administration of, roughly, £3,500,000, a reduction in round figures of £280,000 from last year. The greater part of this charge, almost the whole charge, is borne in respect of unemployment insurance, to which I will make a reference later. There is a balance of £570,000, which covers a variety of services—Trade Boards, Training and Resettlement Schemes, Labour Statistics, Industrials Relations Department, Industrial Court, Joint Substitution Board, and the Organisation of the King's Roll for Disabled Men. There are various other items, including £40,000 for the International Labour Office, making a total on the Vote of £18,150,000 as compared with £20,363,000 in 1923–24.
The Appropriations-in-Aid amount to £4,089,000, and the net total charge on the Exchequer is £14,000,000. These Appropriations-in-Aid comprise a number of items under sub-heads "M" and "S," on pages 64 and 65 of the printed Estimates. The largest item is £4,027,000 in respect of repayment to the Exchequer from the Unemployment Fund of the cost of administration of Unemployment Insurance.
Of this total sum, £3,124,000 is borne on the Ministry of Labour Vote, and the balance of £902,000 is a sum charegable to other Votes—the Post Office, Stationery and Works Votes.
4.0 P.M.
I think the Committee will forgive me if I now turn to the subject of unemployment, which is to form the real issue of to-day's Debate. I want to call attention at the outset to the conditions under which the Government took office. Everything had been done by a section of the Press and by a section of politicians to destroy the confidence of the commercial classes in this country, and to assure the country that a Labour Government would mean a headlong rush to ruin. The most extraordinary statements were made, culminating in one brilliant effort to destroy absolutely all sense of security, when we were told that if a Labour Government took power the sovereign would fall to 1d., America would refuse recognition of the Government, and chaos and red ruin would ensue. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who said that?"] A well-known writer who writes for one of the Harmsworth papers, a paper to which the former hon. Member for South Hackney, now in another Government building, used to be the principal contributor. In his day the paper was more reliable and more truthful than it is to-day. The paper was the "Sunday Pictorial," and the writer was Mr. Lovat Fraser. Those were the facts. Not only this paper but many others and many politicians were repeating the same statement. It was certainly not a patriotic endeavour to forward the interests of the nation. We found the international situation extremely delicate and difficult. Our prestige had fallen lower than it had been for centuries. It is within the knowledge of the Committee that certain proposals made by the Government were not even considered by other countries. We found, as I say, a loss of prestige for which there was no precedent and an attempt to destroy confidence, and we took office under those conditions. We found our markets crippled in the Near and Far East by a blundering incompetence unknown in the history of this country. We had a state of affairs which could have been produced by no other means than by a malignant genius. [HON. MEMBERS: "Names,"] I will give you names if you want them. [HON. MEMBERS: "Lovat Fraser."] No,
not Lovat Fraser, but Lord Curzon. [HON. MEMBERS: "Which Lord Curzon?"] I mean the late Foreign Secretary. We found a thing which would have been considered incomprehensible before the War—Mohammedans and Hindus combining together in opposition to this country.

Mr. RONALD McNEILL: Was that due to Lord Curzon?

Mr. SHAW: Well, I will include the rest of the late Government if you wish. I am very generous, and you can all take your share of the credit. That was the state of affairs which we found. The biggest exporting industry in this country before the War was the cotton textile industry. We used to speak in eight-tenths. Eight-tenths of the products of that industry went abroad, and of those eight-tenths that went abroad eight-tenths went to India. There is no question that unless this big industry can be restored there can be no revival of trade in this country until either we develop absolutely new exporting industries or we make friends of the people of whom we have made enemies. If we look at the rest of our Eastern markets, we find a representative of Turkey, a valuable customer of ours, coming to London and not being even received by the Foreign Secretary. Then, alas, there was Lausanne. We could have made a treaty with Turkey keeping Turkey our friend, being bound to us by bonds of amity. Instead of that, we let the representative go back. We wasted millions of money, and we have Turkey not as friendly as she otherwise would have been. That is the condition of affairs that we found when we came into office. I am not surprised that the two weeks before we took office and the two weeks afterwards showed a rate of unemployment of 1,230,000, to leave out the odd figures. In these conditions, knowing the circumstances, the Prime Minister made a declaration to the House. I will take the liberty of reading that declaration, and then try to demonstrate that it has been acted upon and that the results have been very beneficial to this country. The Prime Minister said:
Whatever Government faces the problem of unemployment ought to face it, first of all, with the idea of putting the unemployed men back in their own work. … Consequently, we shall concentrate, not first of all on the relief of unemployment,
but on the restoration of trade. … The Government have no intention of drawing off from the normal channels of trade large sums for extemporised measures which can only be palliatives. The necessity of expenditure for subsidising schemes in direct relief of unemployment will be judged in relation to the greater necessity for maintaining undisturbed the ordinary financial facilities and resources of trade and industry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th February, 1924; cols. 759–760, Vol. 169.]
That was the declaration that the Prime Minister made to the House, and, in the light of that declaration, I want to examine what the Government have done. We found when we came into office certain extemporised and palliative Measures in existence. They were the Trade Facilities Act, Export Credits, Unemployment Grants Committee work, maintenance of roads and bridges by the Ministry of Transport, land drainage schemes, afforestation, acceleration of Government contracts, and acceleration of work by the Office of Works, in particular on maintenance of buildings, parks, and the like. [An HON. MEMBER: "And McKenna Duties!"] The McKenna Duties do not figure in this. There was, in addition, work that had been done for the development of various schemes in the Colonies and Dominions. There was a number of miscellaneous schemes, such as work done on docks and harbours; and then the Government were exercising such pressure as they could to get the railway companies to accelerate their work on renewals, repairs and electrification.
All these schemes were overhauled. We found that they were making a contribution to relieving unemployment, and we continued and extended them. So far as the Trade Facilities Act is concerned, we extended the maximum guarantees from £50,000,000 to £65,000,000. The Bill became law a comparatively few days ago, and immediately £6,000,000 more was sanctioned. We extended the period for grant of guarantees under the Export Credits Scheme to September, 1926, and the validity of guarantees to September, 1930. We made this scheme applicable to Soviet Russia. With regard to the Unemployment Grants Committee, we authorised a further £2,000,000 of extra work up to 31st March, and we added a further £20,000,000 for the current year. We started a slightly different policy in
regard to most of these schemes. It appears from the records that schemes were generally decided upon after the summer holidays for winter work. We have tried so far as we can to make these schemes for work all the year round and not to rely on schemes that will provide work merely during the winter. We desire, of course, to make the work as continuous as possible and steady throughout the year. It is a far more economical policy, because road work, in particular, is best done in the summer. So far as the road programme is concerned, we have a programme for £13,500,000 in addition to the programmes formed by the late Government and that have not been completely carried out.

Mr. MASTERMAN: Is that in addition to the £14,000,000?

Mr. SHAW: It is in addition to the former Government's scheme.

Mr. MASTERMAN: The late Government had a programme of £7,500,00 and an additional programme of £14,000,000. Are you now proposing an additional programme of £13,500,000 on top of that?

Mr. SHAW: I am proposing an absolutely additional programme of £13,500,000 on the top of the late Government's scheme. I will return to the actual figures in a moment. The chief schemes that we hope to tackle with this programme are big roads in Lancashire, a new road for London—

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: It is the same scheme.

Mr. SHAW: Yes, it is the same scheme, but we are going to do the work. That is the difference. Before I finish, I will deal with the work which the late Government did. I know that they had these schemes for spending £50,000,000, but I assert that they did not spend it. They spoke of another £50,00,000, which made it £100,000,000, but I assert that out of that £100,000,000 of Government money to be spent last winter, not £1,000,000 was spent. We are helping a particular scheme of road work from Edinburgh to Glasgow. The cost will be £2,000,000, and the importance of the work is enhanced by the fact that the road will traverse a district which has been very badly hit by unemployment.
We have made various additions, small in character, to land drainage, both in England and in Scotland.

Dr. MACNAMARA: How much?

Mr. SHAW: £60,000 in the one case and £15,000 in the other. With regard to the Forestry Commission, we have increased the grant by £10,000, but we intend to have an expert committee to advise as to the extension of the scheme. Government work has been accelerated in every possible way. [HON. MEMBERS: "Five cruisers."]

An HON. MEMBER: Do not bother about the dirty Liberals, get on with it.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I cannot permit remarks of that kind to be made.

Mr. SHAW: We found that the late Government proposed to finance a railway in Kenya and Uganda. We reaffirmed that decision and £3,500,000 will be spent. We are considering what we can do with regard to other railway works in Crown Colonies, particularly such railways as will tap cotton-growing areas, and allow us to grow more cotton. These are things vital to the future growth of Lancashire, and, believing that a good thing is a good thing wherever it comes from, we are going to try to do the work. We found, so far as London is concerned, that the Surrey Commercial Dock was in hand, but the Tilbury scheme was held up. We have been able to arrange that this scheme will be commenced at once, and tenders for the work are now being invited, and I believe that some of them have actually been accepted. The value of London Docks is very much minimised by bad approaches, and the Cabinet Committee is now considering the possibility of improving the approaches to these docks. But we found ourselves confronted with this difficulty that an improvement of the roads means a re-housing problem as well. We shall try our best to solve the difficulty and to get the roads in hand.
With regard to railways, we have done what we could to get them to put in hand as much of their work as possible, and, as negotiations are still continuing, I think that I have said enough about that subject. To the fullest possible extent in spite of the difficulties, difficulties arising from the increasing poverty of large towns and cities, which now cannot enter with the Government into schemes which have to be financed jointly, we have done our best during our short term of office, and have succeeded in materially
increasing the employment of our people. We found on the 25th January that 92,000 men were employed on these various schemes, and, in spite of the difficulties that existed, we have increased that number to 108,000. That is an addition of 17 per cent. to the numbers employed by the late Government.
Now what has been the principal task of the Government? By a skilful, frank, firm and friendy foreign policy the Prime Minister has restored confidence and raised our prestige in the eyes of the world. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] Do you doubt it? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!"] If you doubt it, all I say is that your information is not as good as my own. We have brought peace considerably nearer, and in that way we have stimulated employment to a considerable extent. If you take the unemployment figures for the two weeks before our entry into office and the two weeks afterwards, you get an average of 1,232,670. If you take the figure for the 12th May, which is the latest at my disposal, you find a decrease of 238,650. When you ask us what we are doing to find work, we say that there are 240,000 people who have got it since we came into office.

Dr. MACNAMARA: Can you give the figures for last year?

Mr. SHAW: I have not got them here.

Dr. MACNAMARA: My right hon. Friend says that there is roughly a reduction of a quarter of a million this year so far. Does he know that last year, because of the passing from seasonal depression, the reduction was 280,000?

Mr. SHAW: There was a considerable reduction last year, but the reduction is still continuing, and last week's reduction, in spite of all the stories of McKenna Duties was—I am speaking from memory, but I can corroborate it in a moment—over 14,000. So I claim, and I have a right to claim, that this phenomenal reduction is due to the policy of the Government, and is continuing. If it could be maintained for 12 months longer there would be no unemployment at all in this country. That is the biggest contribution to the solution of the problem, and it has been made without the expenditure of a single penny of public money, at the same time increasing our
prestige in the world, increasing the confidence of our manufacturers and traders and giving for the future hope such as has never been held by the working population of these islands since 1918.
It is too much to hope that in a few months we can repair the colossal blunders in the East, but we hope by the same policy which is rapidly leading to the pacification of Europe that we may be able to pacify Turkey and India and restore our markets in those countries. Until that time arrives there are certain great exporting industries that must go idle. No one can fail to see that that is the case. We mean to do our best to repair these blunders and to do our best by a policy of friendliness to bring peace to everybody. We have no fear then for the future. While the Government have been concentrating on the restoration of trade, they have no intention to refuse to embark on any scheme that will be at the same time wise and add definitely to the wealth of the nation. We have no intention of spending money merely for the purpose of spending it, but if we can find schemes that will definitely add to the wealth and efficiency of the country, the fact that they are big schemes, and will cost a lot of money, will not deter us.
Acting on the impulse of those ideas, we are now thoroughly going into the whole question of the electrification of this country. The Electricity Commissioners during the last three years have done magnificent work, and the extent of the increase in electrical provision has been very marked. But we are about to go into the whole question, and certainly shall not shirk any attempt properly to deal with the electrical problem of this country, if we are satisfied that we can do it with advantage to the country, and help the unemployed and serve the efficiency of the future.
The Severn Barrage scheme has been spoken of often. We are sending engineers to the Severn. We are telling them to make the necessary observations, and when we receive their Report, if it be favourable, I have no hesitation in saying that for the first time a Government will really try to solve one of the problems of the future by utilising the tides, which will mean more to this
country than any other single thing. Speaking of the development of electricity, it may be of interest to the Committee to know that during the last few years generating plant has been increased by 60 per cent., the units generated by 24 per cent. and the capital by 43 per cent. since 1919. But the Government are not satisfied that electricity has been thoroughly used yet, and we do intend to make the most thorough investigation of the subject, and to take any steps that may be necessary after experiments have been made.
Another matter on which I find myself unable to make any absolute declaration to-day is the improvement or maintenance of the main trunk roads of the country. The problem with which we find ourselves confronted is that the burden to be borne by the local authorities in the case of some of these main trunk roads is so great that it cannot be faced, with the result that there are roads which are neither what they ought to be nor what they might be. I hope to be able in the course of a fortnight to say definitely that a new method has been found, so that the important work already needed in this country will be undertaken on the main trunk roads. Then we are reclaiming experimentally a small portion of land on the Wash. Other areas are being surveyed, and if the result of the experiments is favourable then there is plenty of work on which we can embark.
With regard to agriculture, the Government are considering the practicability of an extension of the policy of small holdings on new lines. We are going to try and check the drain of labour from the countryside and to keep men happily engaged on the land, a thing which every Member of this House desires.
As there is nothing worse than making promises without an intention to carry them out—as shown by the promises made by the late Government—I prefer not to make definite promises. There was a Budget not long ago, and there was a surplus of £30,000,000 to be disposed of in the remission of taxation. In our opinion that £30,000,000 will be spent in such a way as to give a considerable amount of employment in our home industries. We have been told, of course, that the £30,000,000 was not ours. We have disposed of it, and I am glad of the opportunity of stating the method of its
disposal. Business men represented to us, as others have done, that the Corporation Profits Tax acted as a hindrance to trade. We took it off, in order that trade might have a chance. As a plain business Government wanting to restore trade, we did everything that we could, and this was one of the things we did in order to help towards that object. We recognise quite plainly that, so long as our present taxation exists, there is undoubtedly a serious hindrance to the trade of the country. That taxation is largely and almost wholly due to the interest paid on our National Debt. We have asked a Committee to go into the matter and to suggest to us, if it can, a method whereby this huge burden can be taken from the shoulders of the people.
Then my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Health, will shortly introduce a Housing Bill which, if passed, will give a very large amount of employment, not only to the building trade workers, but to all the trades that are concerned with the making of the fittings, fixtures and furniture needed in a house. I suggest that that is an eminently practical way of dealing with unemployment; you employ people at their own trades, you increase the health of the country, and in a perfctly natural way you achieve your object of reducing the volume of unemployment. The probability is that this work will employ an enormously larger number of people than the number ordinarily employed. [HON. MEMBERS: "Foreigners?"] There will not be any foreign builders or foreign workmen. After all, what are the results of the policy that we have followed? Hon. Members must know, and I will tell them. There has been a reduction of 19 per cent. in unemployment since this Government took office. Facts are stubborn things. In one thing we have supreme confidence: it is absolutely impossible, whether it be summer, winter or spring, to do any worse than the last Government did. These palliatives, whilst important, are not at all our main object. I have already said that international peace is the very basis of commerce and trade. By our home and foreign policy we have given confidence and security, so that our people may work in peace. Particularly in our foreign policy have we brilliantly demonstrated to the world. [Interruption.] The facts are there, and any student of international policy
knows what has taken place in the last few months and what took place in the 12 months before, and the difference of the reception in a friendly country of our ideas and the reception of the ideas of the Government of 12 months ago. The facts are there, and no one can deny them.

Mr. R. McNEILL: Certainly I do.

Mr. SHAW: Then I tell the right hon. Gentleman that he was a Member of a Government which made a suggestion to a certain friendly country, that that friendly country did not even discuss it, and that the circumstances are since entirely changed. They are facts, and no one can deny them. And we have been responsible for the change.

Mr. McNEILL: Before the right hon. Gentleman passes on, I want to ask him, does he seriously believe that the Government did all that?

Mr. SHAW: I not only believe it, but I am certain of it.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I am afraid that the Debate has degenerated into a discussion of foreign policy. We must keep to the subject that is before us.

Mr. SHAW: With due respect, I submit that a country which imports 50 per cent. of its food and much of its raw material cannot make progress unless its foreign policy is sound. Foreign policy is at the heart of the question. Anyhow, I bow to your ruling and I will suggest to the House certain very definite things. First, that our trade is improving; second, that our unemployment is diminishing; third, that our relations at home and abroad are better; fourth, that we have a Government which will undertake any scheme that means efficiency or adding to the wealth of the nation, however big or however small. We will not speak of spending £50,000,000 when we do not intend to spend £1,000,000. We will tell the people plainly what can be done. We will not say that we will spend £100,000,000 this winter when we know that we cannot do so. We will confine ourselves to the lines upon which we have worked, which include the building up of our foreign trade and home trade, by bringing peace to the world and introducing any useful system, confident in the knowledge that the results of this policy are already shown.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I beg to move, that Item A (1) (Salaries, Wages and Allowances) be reduced by £100.
I move this reduction in respect of the salary of the Minister of Labour. We have listened to a speech which might have been made in part by the Foreign Secretary, in part by the Minister of Health and—

Mr. SULLIVAN: Not by you.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: We have listened to a speech which might have been delivered in part by the Minister of Health, in part by the Minister of Agriculture, and in part by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but not much of it by the Minister of Labour. The right hon. Gentleman has been good enough to tell us what the Government is going to do in future in regard to legislation and in regard to agriculture, but he has forgotten that what we want to know is what he has done himself, as Minister of Labour.

Mr. SHAW: The right hon. Gentleman knows that the Minister of Labour cannot carry out any schemes giving employment, and that he can only make suggestions to the other Government Departments. That is what I have done.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Then I think we are entitled to know what suggestions the right hon. Gentleman has made.

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: He has told you.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: No. The right hon. Gentleman is one of a Cabinet, one of a series of Members responsible for dealing with the unemployment question. They came into office quite definitely on pledges given to the country to deal with the unemployment question.

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: That was only one of the things.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: We are discussing that one thing this afternoon, and I am not dealing with the other things, because it would be out of order to do so. I am dealing with unemployment and the remedies that the Government promised to the country. Let me take their first great manifesto, issued before the Election. It is signed by the Prime Minister, by the Lord Privy Seal,
by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, by the Home Secretary, and by other leaders. It says:
The Labour party has a positive remedy for unemployment.
I suppose that that is one of the rabbits we have not yet seen. The manifesto goes on:
We denounce as wholly inadequate and belated the programme of winter work produced by the Government.
The Labour party has urged the immediate adoption of national schemes for productive work. Where are they? We hear of various things that are to be done in future, and various alterations, owing to Peace Treaties. They are not what was promised. What was promised was productive work—a Labour programme of national work, including the establishment of a national system of electrical power supply, the development of transport by the improvement of main roads, railways and canals, the improvement of national resources by land drainage, reclamation, afforestation, town planning and housing schemes. Where are they? The Labour party went to the country and said, "We are ready to put these schemes into operation." Let me refer to a statement made at Miles Platting, in Manchester, on 4th December by the Lord Privy Seal. He attacked the Leader of my party, and said:
There are three lines for the relief of unemployment which Mr. Baldwin might have gone upon. He might have used home resources and, instead of paying an average of £2 per week for the idleness of hundreds of thousands of unemployed men, he might have paid £3 a week for work, and have taken in hand the scores of profitable and necessary undertakings that are waiting.
If the Minister of Labour had only read that speech of one of his leaders he might have got on the telephone and have said to him: "I see that you have these scores of schemes. Let me have half a dozen. I shall have to tell the truth some day in the House of Commons. My salary will be cut down, for these Tories will want to know what I have done. Where are the schemes? You, my Lord Privy Seal, say that you have scores of them, but I ask only for two or three." We have had one or two. I cannot call them rabbits, even lop-eared ones. They are white mice! There is something for land reclamation and something for afforestation. That is a continuation of schemes which we had in hand long before
the right hon. Gentleman came into office, and that is the only new proposal of which he has told us this afternoon, that he and his Government have actually undertaken to reduce unemployment. I am not going over the old suggestions he made about using the tide at the zenith. I have heard of someone who had a scheme for getting gold out of the sea. The right hon. Gentleman might try that. He is going to reclaim a large area of land in the Wash. He might find King John's baggage, for all we know. Really, that is not a serious contribution, when there are 1,000,000 men unemployed.
The right hon. Gentleman was very fair with regard to our schemes. I do not think I need go through them all. Everyone of our schemes, he told us, he has done his best to carry on—the Export Credits' scheme and the Trade Facilities' scheme. There was a very full speech made by Sir Montague Barlow, the late Minister of Labour, at the end of last year, setting out all the schemes we had in hand, the cost of them, and the numbers of men who would be employed. One after another those schemes were gone through. There was no dispute whatever as to the schemes being in operation, or as to the number of men employed, or that the number of men would gradually increase, because the object of the Conservative party was to provide men with work in the winter, when work is most difficult to get. That was our plan. As in previous years, it is evident the peak period of employment on work provided by Government or local authorities is always in March. Sir Montague Barlow, in answer to a question, said he believed, on information he had obtained in his Department, after full inquiries had been made, that there would be, roughly, 300,000 men employed at the peak period on these schemes which were initiated by the Government, by local authorities, and by private contractors. That is roughly the figure arrived at to-day. There are 250,000 men less on the unemployment registers than there were in December last year.

Mr. MASTERMAN: They are not all employed on Government schemes.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have not access to Government figures, of course, but I had when I was a member of the Unemployment Committee of the late
Government. Under these schemes, the arrangements which were made led us quite definitely—and it was not contradicted by my right hon. Friend's statement—to assure the House that somewhere about 300,000 men would be employed, I do not say on Government schemes, but on schemes in consequence of the work which the Government were able to set in motion, including the Trade Facilities, the Export Credits, the road schemes, and, of course, what is a very great point indeed, the large amount of very excellent technical work which we were enabled to induce the railway companies to give at the end of last year. The Committee know that we were able to get three big railway groups, the North-Eastern, the London, Midland and Scottish and the Great Western to place orders, largely in Yorkshire, for locomotives, steel rails and so on, to a sum of something like £30,000,000. The sad part of it is that that work is gradually coming to a close. Very possibly, owing to the amount of labour that was available in Yorkshire and on the North-East coast, that work has been very rapidly done, and in the "Times" of the 10th May, the Sheffield correspondent stated:
The unemployment figures at Sheffield had risen by 1,000 the week before last. The chief cause is that the railway contracts for axles and tyres have been exhausted.
The right hon. Gentleman says he is now in communication with the railways for some further work. I wish him every success. I only hope he will get the railways to give further orders, whether for electrification or in other ways. I do not want to score by his not being able to do it. I hope he will; nothing will please me better. I ask him, further, is there a single scheme of which he has told the House to-day, in addition to those the late Government had in force, that has provided work for one man? We have been trying very hard for the last two or three months to get it out of the right hon. Gentleman. I think it was my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Henley (Captain Terrell) who asked him on the 10th March if the Government had any new proposals for finding work for the unemployed. The right hon. Gentleman replied:
A certain well-known statesman once said, 'Wait and See.'
Pressed still further, he gave this answer:
Does anybody think that we can produce schemes like rabbits out of our hat?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1924; col. 2003, Vol. 170.]
And when I asked him, a few weeks later, whether he could give a statement about the schemes, he said:
I am prepared to do so on the appropriate day.
This is the appropriate day. This is the day on which we expected the right hon. Gentleman would say, "We have definitely arranged with various local authorities to build a bridge here, a bridge there, new roads here, new roads there," or, "We are able to tell you that such and such a road projected by the late Government is now being built, and that so many men are now being employed on it." Nothing of the kind. If the right hon. Gentleman looks through the speeches of Sir Montague Barlow, or the right hon. Member for Colchester (Sir L. Worthington-Evans), or myself, in the last Government, he will find that we gave quite definite statements of the work that was being done, of the work projected, and of the number of men employed, or would be employed, on those schemes. We have had nothing like that from the right hon. Gentleman. He has not really treated the House fairly in this matter. He has not treated himself fairly. He has not treated his Government fairly.
The whole country wants to know. It is no good saying, "We have great schemes for next year." I remember the last debate on which we were discussing the matter, the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. T. Griffiths), when we said there were 300,000 men employed, got up and said, "What are you doing for the other million?" I ask the right hon. Gentleman, "What are you doing for the other million?" The right hon. Gentleman admits there are one million men unemployed to-day, and that there are going to be one million men unemployed the whole of the year. [HON. MEMBERS: "Three years!"] The right hon Gentleman makes the statement here to-day of what he is going to do, and of what the effect of the Treaty of Lausanne is going to do. He has made a statement of a much more important character in regard to the Unemployment Insurance (No. 2) Bill. He asked the Government Actuary, Sir Alfred Watson, for certain estimates and figures as to the cost of unemployment
insurance under the new Bill, and Sir Alfred Watson very rightly said, "Before I can give you these figures, you must tell me what you estimate will be the number of unemployed," and the right hon. Gentleman did so. Sir Alfred Watson said:
I am instructed by the Minister of Labour that the present estimates should be based on the assumption that the numbers on the 'live register,' that is to say, the numbers registered from day to day as out of employment, will average 1,100,000 up to the 15th October next.

Mr. MONTAGUE: An estimate has to be made for the whole year, irrespective of what may happen politically or otherwise.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I am always glad to give way to a question, but perhaps the hon. Member has forgotten how this Report was written. The right hon. Gentleman told his Actuary not only that he estimated 1,100,000 unemployed up to the 15th October, but that he estimated that the number of unemployed would be 1,000,000 until 1926. You cannot get over that. That is his statement. In spite of all he told us to-day—

Mr. MONTAGUE: I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman has not properly understood my intervention. My point is this: Surely, in making an estimate of that kind, one must at least assume the possibility of an Unemployment Bill being defeated. I submit that when one is making an estimate, and giving these figures to an actuary, he has got to take every possible consequence into account.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: No doubt that is exactly what the Minister did. I dare say he said to himself, when preparing his instructions to the Actuary, "Now I must be quite careful not to under-estimate the number of unemployed. I know I am going to tell the House of Commons that the Lausanne Treaty is going to have a great effect, but I do not really believe it." I am only suggesting what his thoughts were. He must be very careful of his report to the Government Actuary, because actuaries want to be correct in their statements, and the right hon. Gentleman said to himself, in order to be on the safe side, "In spite of everything I am going to do for unemployment, there are still going to be 1,000,000 men unemployed until 1926."

Mr. SHAW: No, I beg pardon. I must protest, and call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the fact that two of my predecessors had been so wildly out in their calculations that I was bound to assure myself.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: What is the right hon. Gentleman's estimate today, because we are going to discuss the Unemployment Insurance Bill in the next day or two? Is it still the same?

Mr. SHAW: It is still the same.

5.0 P.M.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The right hon. Gentleman is coming to the House of Commons for money for his Unemployment Insurance Bill. He is founding it on the actuary's statement, which is founded on the right hon. Gentleman's estimate of 1,000,000 unemployed. He cannot play a million one day, and half a million the next day. Will he give us any statement at all which will show that there is the slightest possibility of getting work that will reduce the number of one million to 800,000 before 1926? He cannot do it. There is one thing I should like to mention. Both of us are interested in the cotton trade in our connection with Lancashire. I agree that India takes 8/10ths of our cotton, but does he know that the export of steel goods to India is practically as great as the export of cotton goods to-day? Does he know that India is putting on tariffs against us in the steel market, that it has put on tariffs in order—I will not say to bolster up—but to protect one particular industry. [An HON. MEMBER: "Will you retaliate?"] I am suggesting to the right hon. Gentleman, who is so keenly interested in the cotton trade, that he might consider the iron and steel trade as well. He might consider the effect which these proceedings are likely, and almost sure, to have upon unemployment in Britain. If you are going to throw £10,000,000 or £20,000,000 worth of work out of this country into Belgium, Germany, Czechslovakia—work which could have been done here—we have to take very serious thought in regard to the possibility of the right hon. Gentlemen's employment figures really rising, instead of falling. I do want again to ask the Government what is their remedy at the present moment? I am going back, if I may, to one or two of their pledges. I read one just now
from the Manifesto of their own party. I see here that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies, when he made one of his great speeches in the course of the election campaign, said that unemployment was a
canker that had to be removed regardless of whatever Government was in power, and they were going to insist on its removal.
I wish he would talk to his colleague the Minister of Labour, and tell him to do something. All parties are prepared to foot the bill for this unemployment if the Government will only do it, if they will only tell us they are doing it. A Cabinet Committee was appointed a little time ago to deal with unemployment. What have they done? How often have they sat? What schemes have they had before them? The reason why I wanted to speak before the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon, instead of after him—though, of course, I at once gave way at his request—was that I might put these questions to him, in order that he might give us categorical answers; but he has not done so at all. What I wish to show is that the Labour party pledges were in regard to work for unemployed people, and not all these Foreign Office schemes about which we heard this afternoon. The President of the Board of Trade, in his election campaign, said:
It would be the business of the Labour party to insist that more provision should be made without delay for those unemployed, even if it involved encroaching on the Sinking Fund.
It is as well that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not here, for the President of the Board of Trade suggested raiding the Sinking Fund to find money for the unemployed. Practically every single Member of the Government said the same thing. Again, the Secretary of State for the Colonies also spoke at Derby on the 1st January, when the results of the elections were known, and just before they expected to come into office. He said:
We will make a real attempt to substitute work for doles, which have already demoralised our people and done incalculable harm to the financial stability of the country.
The only answer to that pledge is to increase the dole. Of course, it is easier to increase the dole—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is not a dole."] I beg pardon; that is what the Secretary of State for the Colonies called it. And wait a minute. The uncovenanted benefit is a dole, and nothing more or less than a dole.

Dr. MACNAMARA: indicated dissent.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: I have discussed that in previous speeches in the House. I entirely agree that the covenanted payment is clearly not a dole, but, in so far as the uncovenanted payment is paid out of public funds in respect of which the insured persons have not contributed, that is a dole.

Mr. SHAW: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not want to misunderstand the matter. Any payment, whether covenanted or uncovenanted, is not made out of public funds, but out of the Insurance Fund.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Really, the right hon. Gentleman has told us to-day that £12,000,000 of public money goes to the Insurance Fund.

Mr. SHAW: And £36,000,000 from the employers and employed.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Undoubtedly, and that belongs to the insured people. I am dealing now with people who have not paid their requisite number of contributions. We have had it out over and over again, and, in so far as they have not paid their requisite number of contributions—and they may never pay them; they may die, or they may emigrate after having received uncovenanted benefit—in so far—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is not a dole."] The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies said it was.

Mr. BARKER: Sir Montague Barlow said it was not.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: The one is your Leader, and the other is not. The Secretary of State for the Colonies, again speaking at Derby, said that there were half-a-dozen railways which, to his knowledge, would be electrified, and other work, such as land reclamation, afforestation, and the setting up of important electricity stations, which should be done; but it is not being done. There has been no single statement from the right hon. Gentleman to-day that that has been done. The Minister of Agriculture, also, said:
There were many public works that ought to be undertaken, and land that could be turned to better account, schemes of land reclamation and draining schemes which were at present held up. … They
would equalise the demand for labour, so that at no time would masses of the people be out of work.
Why not try something of that kind, instead of coming and telling us all these fairy tales about the Wash, about the electrification of Great Britain, and so on? I will conclude with only one other extract, from a speech of the Prime Minister himself, which I commend to the right, hon. Gentleman. A Vote of Censure upon us was moved because we had not done enough in regard to unemployment, because we had not found enough schemes. This is what the Prime Minister said:
There has been no insight. Where is the well-devised scheme based upon a detailed and complete conception of the problem that the present-day unemployment presents?
There is no insight, there is no foresight, there is no well-devised scheme put forward by the right hon. Gentleman's own Government, by his own chosen Minister of Labour. There is nothing of the kind. Every one of them went to the country, and got votes up and down the country, by saying, "We are the only people who have a scheme to remedy unemployment. We are the only people who can do it. We are the only people who will do it." They have been in office for four months, and they have not produced one single new scheme. That is the charge we make against them. We are not discussing their foreign policy or any other policy to-day, but the definite charge I make against the right hon. Gentleman is that in this matter he has done nothing. He has not produced a single new scheme. In other words, he and his colleagues have gone to the country upon pledges which they have not fulfilled. I am not going to describe, as one of my hon. and gallant Friends two days ago described, his view of a pledge-breaker, but there are only two reasons for the Government's failure in this matter to fulfil their pledges. One is that they knew at the time that they could not fulfil them, that they knew at the time that the Conservative Government were doing all that was humanly possible in the very difficult task of getting what we may call artificial work started in the country. That is one explanation. The other is that, though they thought they could do it, they have found that they have not the ability to do it.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The Question I have to put is, "That a sum, not exceeding £14,060,239, be granted for the said Service."

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: On a point of Order. I moved my Amendment in respect of the special item of the Minister's salary. I submit that it is in order for me to move an Amendment on that specially, in order that the Minister's salary may be discussed and voted upon, but not the whole question. We, naturally, do not want to reduce the provision that is being made for unemployment.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: Then I will put the Question, "That Item A (1) (Salaries, Wages and Allowances) be reduced by £100."

Mr. MASTERMAN: In company with most of my hon. Friends, I occupy, in some sense, the position of a neutral in this controversy—a position of friendly neutrality towards anyone who is endeavouring to deal with this desperate problem; and, although I may have some criticisms to make of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, none of us, I think, and certainly not myself, will by any means join in what I thought was an unnecessary self-laudation of the work which had been done by previous Governments. In fact, if the right hon. Baronet who has just spoken will turn his mind back to the discussion on the Vote of Censure last November, to which he has alluded, he will find that no one made a more severe, and I think more justifiable, criticism of the action of the then Minister of Labour in connection with the unemployed than my right hon. Friend who then spoke for the Liberal party in the House, the Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara). Therefore, in so far as up to now, as I think I can show by disastrous figures, the schemes propounded by Sir Montague Barlow have not fulfilled the promise which he then made to the House, it is not for me to decide whether that is due to the fact that he made promises that could not be performed, or whether my right hon. Friend, when in office, did not carry out with sufficient energy the ideas then promulgated. That must be settled as a domestic quarrel between the two parties in the House.
I am very reluctant to trouble the Committee with large numbers of quotations from former speeches and pledges. Last Tuesday, as far as I could see, every Member who spoke came stuffed with promises which had been made by right hon. Gentlemen on this bench, and by their supporters in the country. I am not in the least suggesting that there is any reason why that should not be done. All that I object to is a certain amount of repetition, and although, no doubt, many more speakers have prepared on those lines, I do not propose to indulge in them myself to any extent. But I will say this, and it is an honest expression. I followed with the greatest interest and in the greatest detail, as far as I was able, the speech of the Minister of Labour, and the impression left upon me, the honest impression, is one of sincere disappointment at his statement. I would ask sincerely if that be not also the impression left upon a large number of my hon. Friends on these benches? What were the actual facts? The only reference that I make, and it is the only one which is vital to the issue, though others may be the subject of party controversy, is to the actual Manifesto, which has already been referred to by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Twickenham (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks), of 19th November, 1923. That was something more than a statement vaguely made on the political platform. It was a definite, deliberate promise of a policy which would be immediately adopted if the Government came into power. It was not only a complete condemnation of the scheme proposed by the late Government, but it was a promise of positive action different entirely from that which was condemned.
I will not read it all again, but it denounces as wholly inadequate and belated the programme proposed by Sir Montague Barlow—which, if I had been in the House, I would also have denounced as wholly inadequate—and it then promises to bring in immediate schemes on the subjects mentioned, namely, electrical power supply, developments of transport by road, rail and canal, the improvement of national resources by land drainage, reclamation and afforestation, and town planning and housing schemes. Every one of these has been alluded to in the speech of my right hon. Friend. I make no kind of personal
attack in regard to the speech of my right hon. Friend, which was both malignant and humorous, but when I spoke on the Budget, I was accused of paying fulsome compliments to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I do not propose to pay fulsome compliments on this occasion. As my right hon. Friend ran through these various schemes, one after the other, this is the kind of thing to which I listened. On one an expert committee would be appointed. On another the Government were considering it. On a third, the Government were now considering the possibility. On the fourth, the negotiations were still continuing. On the fifth, the Government intended to make investigations. On the sixth the Government were unable to make an absolute declaration. On the seventh, the Government would undertake any scheme which could be suggested to them. The only positive contributions are the building of the five cruisers, which they inherited from the hon. Gentleman opposite as a scheme for reducing the number of unemployed, but which they themselves, from those benches, repudiated as an unemployment reduction scheme and—what encouraged me to a slight extent at the end—the reclaiming of a small portion of the Wash. Surely after five months' deliberation following upon a direct policy, following upon five years' work by what was supposed to be most efficient Labour research department manned by friends of my own—some whom, I regret to say, are now saying things about the present Government that I should be afraid or ashamed to say in this House—and following upon a definite report, in 1921, of the whole party, saying what they would do when they came into office—surely we have a right to ask for something more than these vague references and the embarking of the Minister of Labour on a quite irrelevant discussion on all time and all existence and the condition of the world past, present and to come.
I entirely submit to the ruling of the Chair that foreign policy cannot be discussed on this Motion. I shall not say a word about it except so far as it is raised by the Minister of Labour. I do not find one to say a word in criticism of the foreign policy of the Government, though I am very much in doubt what it is or
what it is likely to be. I have no full information on that point. We have been asked in this House not to discuss foreign policy and have responded to the invitation. Surely, it is nonsense to pretend that either the coming into office of the Labour party or any friendly feeling which they claim has been established with various other nations in the world has had anything to do with the reduction of unemployment from the dimensions of last December to the dimensions of April. It is perfectly true that the electorate probably prevented an enormous increase of unemployment. The electorate declared—and it is now seeing its view carried out in this Parliament—against two things each of which would have ruined the credit and the trade of this country. One was Socialism and the other was Protection, and if there is any revival or elaboration of credit, any development of trade, it is because the electorate and the great business firms of this country know that for some years at least they are relieved from any chance of either of these disasters.

Lieut.-Commander BURNEY: Has the right hon. Gentleman read the speech of Sir Lionel Phillips, one of the leading financiers of the City?

Mr. MASTERMAN: I am very familiar with Sir Lionel Phillips and with the finance in which he is interested, but that makes not the slightest difference to the statement which I make—that the prosperity of this country must depend on the development of its great export trade. You cannot live by your own home trade in which you make no profit at all, and the demand of the export trade has been, "No Protection and no Socialism," and the electorate has endorsed that demand. The second point I wish to make is this. Of course trade has improved in April. It always does improve in March or April, and the last Government, though they have not the right to claim much, have the right to claim this: they did definitely declare that their schemes would materialise at that time and that the natural seasonal revival of trade would of necessity mean an improvement of the figures in connection with unemployment, and they definitely established their programme as a winter programme. In a bombardment of questions in the course of which I worried the Minister of Labour during past months, we have asked how
the Government have provided for that winter unemployment and we have never received a satisfactory answer and we have not had a satisfactory answer this afternoon.
In contra-distinction to the argument advanced from the other side, I honestly think the Government have a right to speculate in somewhat optimistic fashion in deciding as to the figures concerning the future. There is not only the seasonal revival of trade. There is evidence of what we call the cyclical revival of trade, namely, a revival of trade in the cycles which always took place before the War and were disturbed by the War. In so far as that is occurring, it should be a subject for congratulation among all parties alike. If my hon. Friends choose to say they want to take the credit of that, let them take the credit for it, if they can, so long as the improvement continues. This is far too serious a matter for us to quarrel about the credit taken by one side or the other of dealing with it. I must honestly say, and I say so in no offensive fashion, that unless something more than is suggested by the Labour Department is done, and done quickly, this Government will be under the liability of being reckoned in the future as a Government of broken promises. They have broken promises again and again to the ex-service men, and they have broken promises to the unemployed. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Let hon. Members of the Labour party get up and defend the Government afterwards. I have no wish to attack the Government where I am not on sure ground, and on these facts I am on sure ground; but if only they can show some energy and courage in pushing forward schemes which we know to be possible, it is not too late for them to restore their rapidly declining reputation in the country in this matter.
I should be ashamed to detain the Committee if I had not some constructive ideas to offer, and I wish to suggest some constructive ideas which may possibly be helpful in dealing with a desperate problem. Let me put the problem in succinct form. You have over 1,000,000 unemployed. You are estimating for over 1,000,000 unemployed up to 1926 and for over 800,000 for an indefinite period after 1926. The words of the report of the Actuary are "and so on." I do not
know when the "on" is going to come off. I am not saying that as a reproach at all, but I am giving the facts Remember that the great majority of these unemployed are not, as in the old days, men who come out when a trade is failing—when some particular trade is under a cloud. The large majority of them are men who are continuously unemployed, month after month and year after year. You are building up above the Poor Law sediment of the unemployable a new race who are going to live on continuous unemployment benefit, and the only suggestion of Government interference or action made by the Minister of Labour in connection with the new race is that we should go on passing one after the other No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 Unemployment Bills to continue or increase the payments—I will not call them doles if the word is offensive, and I do not like it myself—to men who are only paid on condition that they are doing no work at all for the benefit of the community.
Supposing the historic visitor from some other planet were to come down and look into this subject, the first question he would ask would be: How are your million men being paid? The reply would be, that they are being paid with money extorted from the employed already in work and their employers, and with money from the State. What is the State? he may ask, and we must come to the conclusion that the State represents money which is taken from the taxpayers. There are no other funds to support these men in idleness. The visitor may then say: These are men who cannot work and whom you have to carry—men who are unfit, who were brought up under conditions which permanently injured their health and who have to be carried by the State as a responsibility for the sins of past generations. The reply will be: No, they are not that class at all. We already keep that class under the Poor Law. One out of every 31 people is being supported by poor relief. These 800,000 men are some of the very flower of our people, trained in skilled trades, willing to be tested week by week where work can be found for them, and they are losing heart because no work can be found. Above all a great proportion are ex-service men who have given all their country asked them for and for whom the Government had a national responsibility
after they won the War and saved the nation. Also, if you analyse this figure, the great majority are young men, intelligent men and men of good physique. It is the old men who are in work and the young men who are drawing the dole.
Is there not enough intelligence or compassion in this Parliament or in this Government, or in all parties together, to see that this kind of thing does not continue? Our visitor might say: "Let us take some examples." He might say: "Housing is mentioned as a means of employing these men." He might say: "I suppose you have no need for houses and that all these men are sufficiently well sheltered." You would have to reply: "No, most of them are living in houses unfit for human habitation." Then he would say: "Why do you not train some of these men to increase the general productive work of the country in building houses, if necessary, for themselves?" That was attempted in connection with the ex-service men, and we asked two or three days ago, from the Minister of Labour, what had become of that scheme. He said it was the scheme of his predecessor, and he had nothing to do with it. I myself asked, would he revive the scheme, and all he could say was, that he would take it into consideration. Why are we stopped from training these men? Because the Government have, apparently, accepted the Report of the Building Committee, employers and employed united, that for the building of subsidised houses for the working people no man over 20 shall be allowed to be employed, however many years he may have been trained, however skilled he may be. [HON MEMBERS: "No!"] But that is actually the Report, and I challenge anyone on the Government Benches to prove the contrary. I have the Report here, and I made this point before the Minister of Health before Easter, and he did not contradict it. I made the point also before the Building Committee, and they have not contradicted it. They are willing to take in boys under 20 as apprentices, but what good is that for the million unemployed?

Mr. HUDSON: Of the million unemployed, many are under 20.

Mr. MASTERMAN: How many are under 20? I do not want to make any charge against anyone, but I say without
hesitation that this House will not accept that position, and I say without hesitation also that the building trade is demanding what none of the organised trades have ever demanded, and is unique in its refusal to come to the assistance of the men who are now unemployed, on a Government scheme in which they are also asking for a guarantee of 15 years of continuous employment, which, again, is given to no other trade. I do not want to get heated or to be controversial, but I put these points forward as being well worthy of consideration. The observer might ask again, "Is this country so developed in all its resources that there is no need for the Government to take action, not in relief works in the technical sense, but in works which will make for the general welfare and efficiency of the country and which may absorb the unemployed until, by the natural evolution of trade, they can find work in private enterprise?" [HON. MEMBERS: "Never!"] Oh, yes, they will. I am looking forward with confidence to the time—and I believe I shall be justified—when we shall get back again to the period, as in 1890 and 1907, when the registered number of unemployed fell to less than 1½ per cent. of the population. [An HON. MEMBER: "Thousands of them on 17s. 10d. a week!"] That is not the point. It is because of the great demand for our export trade. Lancashire was then running up cotton factories and could not meet the demand while those cotton factories were being built; and this need not be regarded as a matter of controversy, it is a question of fact.

Mr. T. JOHNSTON: Your leader denies that under this capitalist system you can ever do without unemployment.

Mr. MASTERMAN: I am trying to present certain facts to the Committee. I had something to do with the contrivance of the unemployment insurance scheme. We went fully into the actuarial figures and the figures of unemployment, and the whole conception of the unemployment insurance scheme was to bridge these gaps between the time when there was only 1½ per cent. unemployed, the time when there was 5 per cent. unemployed, and the time when we got back again to 1½ per cent. unemployed, and if the unemployment insurance scheme is not to be used to bridge these gaps, but is to be used for the continuous support
of men on condition that they do no work, we are faced with a quite new proposition in this country. We are backward in every method of national equipment in comparison with our trade rivals. We are backward in electrical supply, we are backward in motor transport, our land is half derelict, there are enormous quantities of waste. There is work that the right hon. Gentleman might have proposed this afternoon for the House to adopt, and he would have received the unanimous support of all parties in this House. Of all the miserable arguments I have ever seen—I am glad he does not associate himself with them—there is one which I read this morning in a paper which is trying to make the best defence, and a very poor best it is, of the policy of my right hon. Friend. I believe it is the official Labour paper, and it said my right hon. Friend could not bring in these great schemes because other parties would be sure to kill them. [Interruption.] Bring in the schemes; that is all we ask.
I have had some occasion to examine the reports of special investigators in connection with those questions, who have gone to most of our trade competitors and to all the war-scarred countries in the world. They are not Socialist countries. The least Socialist country in the world, I suppose, is France. France is equipping herself, through public assistance and by private and municipal enterprise—[An HON. MEMBER: "At our expense!"]—in a way in which we are doing nothing at all. Perhaps it may be news to hon. Members in this House, to take just one example, that, apart from the making of waterways, the whole of the South Western Railway of France is going to be worked by hydraulic electrical supply, through three great centres, and express electric trains are to be run from Pais to Toulouse by the use of water power, a distance which, I believe, is longer even than that between London and Glasgow.

Mr. BAKER: Is it working?

Mr. MASTERMAN: It is being sanctioned and being made at the present time, but we are not doing it. Germany has lost the most important proportion of her coal supply during the War; since the War, Germany is turning out three times the electrical supply she was turning out before the War, out of the remnant of Germany that is left; and as
for America, if you investigate what has been doing there in the equipping and self-development of the country, in which all these men might be used, you come to the conclusion that the only thing that prevents our trade being utterly swamped by America is the existence of the high American protective tariff. [Interruption.] I seem to receive invectives impartially from both sides.
Take the question of transport, of motor ways. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Exchange Division of Liverpool (Sir L. Scott) has introduced a Bill into this House, which is backed by Members of all parties alike, for the provision of great electric motor roads, which can be provided by the State if the State chooses to take the responsibility, but which can be provided by private enterprise, with the State right of pre-exemption, if the State will not take the responsibility—as much a necessary adjustment to new conditions as were the railways when they were first made in this country. We cannot get a Second Reading for that Bill. It is there, we need not go to the Lord Privy Seal and his telephone. Go to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Exchange Division, and say you will take up that Bill. We do not want to claim the parentage. Adopt the infant yourselves, take him up, bring him into this House, and pass him, and you will immediately find schemes to which you need not necessarily contribute money, but which, if you will give us powers, will create great arterial motor roads from such districts as Coventry and Birmingham to Manchester, which will absorb tens of thousands of the unemployed in skilled and unskilled labour.
Take the industry of agriculture, on which my right hon. Friend touched. I remember a deputation coming over from France and Germany to study the methods of British agriculture. They journeyed from London to Manchester looking out of the railway carriage window, and when they got nearly two-thirds of the way to Manchester, they asked those who were taking them round England where the cultivated land began. Some of us would like to hear a more advanced and courageous agricultural policy, even than that of Wages Boards and subsidies to co-operative societies, which seems to be the limit of those at present suggested
by the Government. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the Liberal Government!"] Do not let us have any of this talk about what the Liberals did. When we are in office, with your support on these benches, we will bring schemes in. Meanwhile, we ask you, having been called to that high office, to be worthy of your calling—that is all—to fulfil your promises, to realise the necessities, to understand the needs of the country, to combine far-sighted ideas with efficient working, and to understand that the necessities of the time require such large methods as these more than they have ever done in the whole past history of this land. I do not know whether this Amendment is a Vote of Censure on the Minister or on the Government. I certainly would never lend any opinion I had to the idea, which I see promulgated outside this House, but which I hope will be repudiated by the House, that constitutionally, if you move the reduction of a Minister's salary, the only difference that would be made if that Motion were carried would be that the Minister would do without that extra money. Constitutionally, if you move the reduction of a Minister's salary, you move a Vote of Censure on the Minister, and you must realise all its consequences.
I have no wish to move a Vote of Censure on the Minister of Labour, and I have no wish to hold up hon. Gentlemen now on the Government side as being in any degree worse in their day and generation than were hon. Gentlemen opposite. They had five years, these hon. Gentleman have had five months. If my controversy is greater with these, it is because of the greater magnitude of their promises and the apparently greater laxity in their fulfilment, but I say to the right hon. Gentleman this: If we wanted party interest and capital in this matter, we would not make any criticisms, in this House or outside, of what he is doing. We would let him go on making promises of what he will do in the future, we would let him go on with these blundering promises—I use the word in no offensive sense—talking about foreign affairs, talking about hopes which may not be realised, talking about everything but the work he is entrusted to do, until he had to face the country again, and then I know what the verdict of the country would be. But let us not think so much
of that as of the immediate need of the country, and I can assure my right hon. Friend that, if he can in the near future give replies far different from his proclamation of policy to-night, he will command the enthusiastic support of the great majority of the hon. Members for whom I have the honour to speak.

Mr. BAKER: I have one point to put which may not be made by any other speaker during this Sitting, but, before coming to that particular point, I should like to say that, in my view, the difference between the Government and the Opposition is largely a matter of the way in which they approach this and similar social problems. As I listened to the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks), I could not help being struck by the fact that the whole of his speech was a speech of jubilation, a speech based on levity, because he felt that, no matter what the needs of the country might be, he had a temporary advantage over his opponents. I submit that the social problems of this country cannot be solved by a continuance of that party spirit. Last night I was conversing in the Lobby with one of the leading men on the other side of the House, and he admitted in private conversation—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"]—I apologise if I was doing an incorrect thing, but the point I am trying to make is that, so far as social problems are concerned, it is absolutely essential that they should be approached with a desire to find a solution of the difficulty rather than with a desire to make party capital out of any slips of our opponents. I claim that any man in this House who attempts seriously to contend that the Labour party has failed during its short term of office to remedy the whole of the social problems with which we as a nation are confronted, is not acting fairly by himself, by his party, or by the nation. As a matter of fact, the last speaker made that point perfectly clear.
Whilst contending that the Labour Government has failed to deal with this question of unemployment, and to solve it, he said it was still not too late. It is not too late! The Labour Government is handling a very difficult situation in an entirely new spirit, with entirely new methods, and I have faith to believe that just as houses will be the outcome of the housing scheme of the Minister of Health,
in the same way I believe the remedy for unemployment will be forthcoming almost immediately. I have taken a deputation to the Ministry of Labour within the last few days. I was able with regard to the City of Bristol to lay certain proposals before the Ministry. I have received a definite undertaking that those practical suggestions shall be pressed forward, because the Ministry realises that this will tend to help to relieve the problem and to find a solution. I was amazed to hear the right hon. Gentleman who represents Twickenham (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks) attempt to ridicule the proposals that have been put forward in regard to the Severn Barrage. To compare a proposal like that with the suggestion to draw gold from sea-water is to be unfair to this House and the nation. I would remind the Committee that the Severn Barrage scheme was recommended and dealt with in the third Interim Report of the Water Power Resources Committee. There is only one doubt about the scheme, and that doubt is as to whether it might or might not interfere with the power of navigating the Bristol Channel. I have received the most definite assurances from the President of the Board of Trade that the Government will safeguard the navigation of the Bristol Channel. If that point can be safeguarded, I have no doubt whatever that the Report of the Water Power Resources Committee is a sufficient foundation upon which the Government may take steps to start that very great national electricity powers scheme.
Quite apart, however, from the things enumerated in the speech of the Minister, there are many things which the Government are proposing to introduce which are capable of providing a solution of this problem. The problem of unemployment rests mainly upon two things: Firstly, the fact that the people are divorced from the land; and, secondly, that the powers in this country are unwilling to employ unemployed men upon work unless they can secure a profit for private interests. It is impossible for the Labour Government in the present circumstances to introduce large measures to deal with nationalisation of land, the nationalisation of the mines, and so on, or to introduce a scheme for employment of men without the intervention of the man who is securing the private profit.
But I am satisfied that the Government will introduce a large scheme of afforestation in the early months which will go a long way towards remedying this problem.
I want to make one small point, which I rose to bring to the notice of the Minister. I would remind the Committee that the full solution of the problem of unemployment can only be secured by the nationalisation of land, of mines, and of the other essentials of life necessary for the well-being of the community. I want to make one small point, which I rose to bring to the notice of the Minister. As a result of the Report of the Southborough Committee, which dealt with the Lytton entrants, certain anomalies have arisen so far as the Department of the right hon. Gentleman is concerned. The Southborough Committee recommended that temporary officers taken into permanent employment of the Government should be given a scale of pay which would meet their economic needs in the present circumstances. As a result of that Report, and as a result of the adoption of the proposals, it does happen that between 800 and 900 women clerks working in the Labour Ministry are actually in receipt of less money than the temporary employés who have been taken into the permanent service with very much smaller total service. It so happens that in some cases women with as much as 20 years' total service in the Government service are receiving lower wages than ex-temporary colleagues, and at the same time are forced to supervise these ex-temporary colleagues. I do not want to elaborate the case. I am anxious not to interfere with the major topic of debate. I would, however, appeal to the Minister to give very careful consideration to this point, and to make representations to the Treasury at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. PENNY: I listened with considerable interest to the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rusholme (Mr. Masterman). I feel quite confident that, if the hon. and right hon. Members on the benches opposite who also listened to that speech would vote according to the dictates of their hearts, there is no doubt they will vote for the Amendment put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks). I feel it is a great pity to have to move this reduction, but I consider it is
absolutely necessary, for whether he has promised to produce rabbits or work for the unemployed, I can only say that he has failed most lamentably. I am also sure that if the hon. Gentlemen behind the Minister had a free vote at the present time, there would be no hesitation as to which way they would vote, because they must realise that nothing whatever has been done to help forward this great problem since the Labour party came into power. I say that in no spirit of unkindness, but there is no doubt that the legislation that has been placed before us since they came into power has been more with an eye upon the electorate than on helping the troubles of the unemployed.
Take, for instance, the Unemployment Insurance Bill. It is quite evident that, that Measure is in a way designed to encourage the slacker, and to place idleness at a premium, and to bring the younger generation up with the idea of feeling that they are going to get something for nothing. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] That is the wrong spirit to instil into the youth of this country at the present time.

Mr. STEPHEN: That has occurred in other quarters.

Mr. PENNY: Workers who are prepared to give of their best in return for the wages they receive have told me that there is no incentive for them to do so for the reason that men who are prepared to do nothing at all are getting almost the same money as they who are working.

Mr. STEPHEN: What about the aristocrats?

Mr. PENNY: We are quite aware that maintenance is necessary for those poor fellows who, through no fault of their own, cannot find employment. For these men something must be done by the Ministry of Labour. The Ministry should direct their energies to the promotion of measures which would provide work for these men and, at the same time, increase the productive power of the community. I really do think, at times, that the Socialists do not desire to see a happy and contented state in this country, and that they feel there is more chance of getting a reversion of the present social order by having discontent in the country, than if they pursue a policy
whereby we secure a contented people. I would ask that the Government should look at the matter from a broader point of view. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rusholme said, this matter is one which ought not to be in any way a party matter. The men who have fought for us, the men who have given their best for us, are absolutely a responsibility upon the State, and every effort should be made to secure work for them, so that their energies may be put in the right direction. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why did your party not do it?"] I do not think that any Government we have had has been more callous in its disregard of this matter than the—

Mr. STEPHEN: Last one!

Mr. PENNY: I am not talking of the last one. I am speaking of the present one, that made all sorts of specious promises at the Election which they have failed to fulfil. They suggested at the Election—though I do not want to traverse unemployment again—that they had a definite cure for it. They made promises to the ex-ranker officers, to the police strikers, and also to the pre-War pensioners. What have they done? Because these people represented quite a small minority in the country, nothing whatever has been done. As regards the pre-War pensioners, a mean and niggardly £300,000 was proposed. Had they been a bigger body of men, I say that far more liberal measures would have been meted out to them by the Socialist Government.

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: That was more than the Tories ever tried to do, was it not?

Mr. PENNY: It is very significant that they are a small portion of the community. There is a great deal of difference between responsibility and irresponsibility. The Socialist Government at the present time realise that they have responsibility. A scheme was set forth by members of the Conservative party—hon. Members opposite ought to know—for the benefit of the unemployed, and this and other schemes were cried down as being totally inadequate for what was required. What then have the Labour Government done? They have done nothing further to help unemployment, although they had, so they said, specific cures all ready and cut and dried to be launched as soon as they came
into office. They have had every opportunity since they have been in office, but instead of helping the position, they have brought in Measures which have only helped to increase unemployment in the country. The country has absolutely come to the conclusion that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour is in the happy position of being in a jolly good sheltered trade at the present time.

Mr. STEPHEN: Where you want to be!

Mr. PENNY: I do not want to see any class treated unfairly, but we have had all these moral gestures from the Socialist Government, and at the expense of whom? At the expense of the Britisher every time. There was the abolition of the McKenna Duties. That action is going to add considerably to unemployment. There was the Reparations Recovery Act reduction, whereby we lost some £7,000,000 of Revenue. There was the Imperial Conference proposals which were turned down. Things might have been put into the Budget which would have helped to relieve unemployment. There is penny postage, for instance, which would have helped trade considerably. These things ought to have been attended to. Then there is the great scheme of Empire migration. That has been turned down Did hon. Members note what the Colonial Secretary said at Wembley the other day? If only hon. Members on those benches would take the same line as their colleague in this matter, it would be better for the people of this country.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. A. V. Alexander): I do not think the hon. Member could have been in the House last night when the President of the Board of Trade announced the decision of the Cabinet with regard to Empire migration.

6.0 P.M.

Mr. PENNY: I was not present, but I am glad to hear that some announcement was made. I noticed that the Lord Privy Seal has come to the same way of thinking on this point as the Secretary of State for the Colonies. I want to secure that, if our men go over to the Colonies, they will have a chance of establishing themselves and helping to develop the great Empire for which we on this side of the House, at all events, stand. As regards the housing scheme, the Socialist Government
did not in any way assist the training of those 50,000 ex-service men we wanted taken into the building trade. The trade unions would not have them, although it would have relieved the housing difficulty very considerably, and the Socialists helped the trade unions to resist the proposals. We want a comprehensive scheme of apprenticeship for young fellows who will be able to learn their trades in the same manner as in the past. I think the Government ought to do everything they can to induce trade unions to remove their restrictions on those willing to learn a trade, and I hope the Minister of Labour will try and secure some outlets for the unemployed, such as those upon which I have touched.

Captain RAMAGE: I have to ask hon. Members to extend to me the indulgence which they characteristically show to an hon. Member addressing the House for the first time. I have no intention of hurling recriminations against the Minister of Labour in regard to his proposals affecting unemployment, but I rose in the hope that I might help to whet his apparently blunted purpose. I do not seek to deprive him of the emoluments to which, admittedly, his hard labours entitle him, although the results, so far, have been abortive. Nevertheless my sympathy goes out to the right hon. Gentleman in his position in the House to-day, because he is the victim of political circumstances. If there ever was a believer in the doctrine of Cabinet responsibility, of the collective responsibility of the Cabinet, I feel it must be the right hon. Gentleman who is sitting on these benches to-day, because all the-schemes for the relief of unemployment which enabled so many of his hon. Friends behind him to be returned to this House have now come home like chickens to roost on the broad back of the right hon. Gentleman. He is now made answerable for what is after all a matter for which the Cabinet is responsible and particularly the Cabinet Committee on unemployment.
I do not want to remind the Minister of Labour of his election manifesto, because that has already been done from both sides of the House, and I have no doubt it has been done by his own supporters, but of every speech made by the right hon. Gentleman and his supporters in the
country before the election. The party to which the Minister of Labour belongs has always been rather adverse to disclosing the details of their remedies for our national distresses. Never did the retailers of quack remedies so consistently conceal their wares while at the same time extolling their virtues and their merits, and on this occasion there has been no exception. I think the Committee is entitled to say that after five months in office, when the Minister of Labour still maintains an indiscreet silence, he is carrying his policy of secrecy too far. The Minister told us only two months ago that his policy has been one of "Wait and See," but hon. Members below the Gangway are only too afraid that it will degenerate into a policy of "Watch and pray." The Minister of Labour has been put into a somewhat invidious position by his colleagues, and I suggest, although none of us is infallible, not even the youngest of us, that he should tear up the election manifesto of his party, and forget all about it, and then he might approach this problem from a fresh standpoint and be able to make some appreciable contribution towards its solution.
The Prime Minister told his friends of the Independent Labour party that he hopes to be in office for two or three years. It is very significant that the Government actuary for that period estimates that unemployment will remain at the same level, and then only fall by 200,000 in the following year. I would like more particularly to direct the attention of the Minister of Labour to the skilled industries of the country. The right hon. Gentleman spoke in a very hopeful note, and suggested that unemployment had come down by leaps and bounds in the last three months. I would like to point out that in the main skilled engineering industries that is not the case, and even the change from winter to summer conditions has not been reflected in those industries by increased employment. The engineering and the shipbuilding trades, according to the right hon. Gentleman's own figures up to the end of April, show that there were 124,000 unemployed in the United Kingdom in the engineering trade, of whom 30,000 were unemployed in the North-Eastern area, where I have the honour to represent a constituency. The
statistics also show that the shipbuilding trade had 80,000 unemployed in the United Kingdom, of whom 26,000 were unemployed in the North-Eastern area, representing 36 per cent. of those normally employed in the industry. The Minister has not referred to that industry specifically, but if he would do so, he would, no doubt, count one light cruiser that has been given to Barrow. But we on these benches cannot regard that as any attempt to solve the problem so far as the shipbuilding and engineering trades are concerned.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned road-making and canal schemes, but these are not what we are looking for to assist skilled trades in the North-Eastern area. It is no use to put a shipwright on to digging a canal, or a turner and fitter to work on a relief road, and although that may absorb their energies we know that they will deteriorate as skilled workmen. It is true we may maintain his morale by giving him some form of employment, but at the same time by this kind of work he is losing morale as a skilled workman, and he is in danger of drifting into the ranks of the unskilled labourer. The Minister for Labour suggested that the only cure was a resettlement of Europe and the pacification of Europe. Are we seriously to expect that nothing is to be done for these great industries until Europe is resettled? The hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) suggests that the cure lies in the unsettlement of this country by the universal application of Socialist methods to the organisation of industry, but what we are entitled to know is what is the official remedy of the Labour party and the remedy which they propose to put into effect? I do not want to tie the Minister of Labour down to his Election pledges or his Election manifesto, but I want to know what he is going to do. What is his contribution going to be? The right hon. Gentleman says that in this respect the present Government are no worse than the last Conservative Government, but surely that is not any recommendation for a Labour Government. We turned out the Conservative Government in the belief that a Labour Government could not possibly be worse. If that is the standard which the Minister of Labour is setting up then the Government will have to revise its programme.
The Minister in introducing his Unemployment Insurance Scheme sought to make some capital out of it as a contribution towards the problem of unemployment. It seems that what the Lord Privy Seal, when in Opposition, described as criminal folly and the Prime Minister as shortsightedness and mere political expediency, when in office these things become inevitable owing to the situation in Europe and in the country generally. I would urge the Minister to disregard much of the criticism which has been levelled against him from the benches opposite, which has not been made in any helpful spirit, and may be summed up in the phrase, "At any rate, you are doing no better than we did." That may satisfy right hon. Gentlemen opposite, but I assure the Minister of Labour that it is not satisfactory to the House as a whole. We do want to see something done, and some attemut made to grapple with this problem. We do not ask the Minister to produce the scores of schemes to which the right hon. Gentleman opposite referred, but we do ask him to say that he is examining certain concrete and definite proposals, and that if he can find that any one of these schemes is practicable and can be put into effect, the Government will do it.
I heard nothing so definite as that from the right hon. Gentleman, but perhaps when the Under-Secretary replies we may hear something definite to that effect. Pressure was brought to bear upon the late Government on this very question, and we know the dangerous lengths to which that pressure drove them. I hope that the Minister on this occasion will not be tempted to try anything fantastic of that nature. If he will confine himself to some scheme for finding employment for skilled workmen, not on roads, canals or afforestation, but real relief for the skilled workers who are, as the figures of the trade unions show and as the emigration figures show, leaving this country for America, then he will be making a real contribution to the problem. That is a matter for very serious reflection, and that is why I am urging it upon the Government.
The fall in the membership of the engineering trade unions shows that large numbers of engineers are leaving the country. The emigration figures last
year were increased by 80,000, rising to nearly a quarter of a million, and the drain is very largely from the skilled industries of the country, and not from the great pool of casual labour. If nothing can be done to stop that, it leaves this country with a burden on industry of training apprentices for a period of five years, while one of our greatest competitors is receiving skilled men, ready turned out, who arrive in that country every day. We have the apprentices to train, but owing to depression even the ex-service men engaged in interrupted apprenticeship schemes are not able to complete their apprenticeships. The whole result of this process of deterioration is, that if conditions improve, as the Minister of Labour hopes they will, owing to our foreign policy, we shall not then be in a position to take advantage of it, because our skilled men, in large numbers, have left the country, and because this demand will come when it is too late to train our apprentices.
If we can hear nothing more definite from the Minister of Labour to-day or from some Member of the Government, it seems to me that it is only left for the Minister to say, as did the President of the Board of Trade, that it is no part of the duty of the Government to find employment for particular industries. That, at least, would clear the atmosphere, and the Minister could then retire to consider how he is to meet the increased charges on the Unemployment Insurance Fund with the reduced Estimates which he now puts before the Committee.

Mr. STEPHEN: This discussion impresses itself upon me as a Debate in which there is an obvious intention on the part of hon. Members to make as much party advantage as possible out of the circumstances of the unemployed. Hon. Members have expressed the opinion that they are not in the least anxious to make party advantage, but in listening to them the one impression that I got was the evident intention on the part of hon. Members on the other side, and hon. Members below the Gangway, to use the circumstances of the unemployed, and the position in which the Government is placed in dealing with those circumstances, in order to try to further their own party advantage. [An HON. MEMBER: "What did you do last year?"] I
thought that I was correct in my estimate. We are now getting a confession. We are now agreed that hon. Members are looking at this question from the point of view of party advantage. I want to say, at the outset, that although the Government have not been able to produce schemes which have meant that all the people who are unemployed are able to get a job, and although they have not been able to set on foot great schemes bringing a great number of the unemployed into work in the five months they have been in office, they have, at any rate, done as much as the other two parties have been able to do in 30 years. [Laughter.]
It is all very well for hon. Members to treat that definite assertion with derision. Right through the history of the Labour party there has been an attempt to get the other two parties to realise the need of having our industries run so as to absorb the energies of our people, but we have never been able to get hon. Gentlemen opposite, or hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, to look at this matter with any broad vision, and to realise that our present mode of production is something that can never provide for employment of all the workers in the country. The right hon. Member for Rusholme (Mr. Masterman) said, "Let us have some great schemes." He mentioned great arterial roads. Supposing we had these great schemes set on foot, and we had large numbers of people employed on those schemes, we could not go on for ever making arterial roads. The time comes when your road is made, and again you are faced with the problem of finding employment for the people. The true point of view in regard to these schemes is that they are only temporary means of bridging over a set of circumstances, and those circumstances will always recur so long as your industry is organised on a capitalist basis, and so long as profit is more important than human lives.

Sir LEONARD LYLE: Is that really the remedy of the Labour party for unemployment? If so, we should like to know it.

Mr. STEPHEN: The hon. Member asks me if that is a real remedy for unemployment, namely, the sweeping away of the capitalist system. I say quite frankly,
and I think there is no Member on these benches opposite but would say the same thing, that it is the only possible remedy. We have, however, a right to ask from the Government that until we can get a replacement of the capitalist system by a system of Socialism, they will try to arrange schemes that will tend to lighten the worries and the hardships of the masses of our unemployed. The Liberals, the Coalitionists and the Tories went bungling on for many years. The Minister of Labour, who is a capable and efficient individual, cannot be expected to do it all in five months. He has to have time to consider the various schemes with the officials in the Department. Suppose the Minister of Labour had arranged with one of his colleagues to set up a big scheme, and he had acted without going into the matter with the representatives of the Departments concerned, hon. Gentlemen opposite and hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway would have raised Cain in this House over the Minister acting in such a way.
Hon. Members come here to-day and ask us what we have done. The light hon. Member for Rusholme worked himself into a tremendous passion because the Minister of Labour had drawn attention to the fact that the housing scheme of the Minister of Health was likely to result in a large reduction of the number of unemployed. He said, "It will never do. The scheme is not at all satisfactory. These people in the building industry are not allowing any person to go in and start learning to lay bricks or to take part in the industry. They are only going to allow a certain proportion." Hon. Members on the other side and below the gangway who control the industries of this country know perfectly well that they could reduce the number of the unemployed by paying their workers decent wages. A large amount of unemployment resulted from the cutting of wages in the various industries. I say to those hon. Members, "You destroyed the home market. You cut down the workers' wages, and then you come here and say to the Labour Government, you have not been able to settle this thing. You have not been able to produce in four or five months sufficient schemes to absorb the whole number of the unemployed." The Labour party has done more to help the working classes and the unemployed in four or five months—

Lieut.-Colonel WOODWARK: Free railway passes!

Mr. STEPHEN: One hon. and gallant Member makes a stupid remark. I understand him to say something about free railway passes. I suppose he has never had any trouble about getting his railway pass, although probably he has never worked in his life.

Lieut.-Colonel WOODWARK: The hon. Member is talking about the Labour party not being able to do much in a short time; but it did not take them long to introduce free railway passes.

Mr. STEPHEN: The hon. Member says that it did not take us long to arrange for free railway passes for hon. Members. That was a very little thing. It is a vastly different thing devising economic schemes than arranging to give hon. Members below the Gangway free railway passes. We did one thing right away, which the Liberals could not do and which the Tories, could not do, and that was to abolish the gap. That meant a great deal for the unemployed people, [An HON. MEMBER: "Does the hon. Member suggest that that is finding a remedy for unemployment?"] I am asked whether the abolition of the gap is helping to solve the problem of unemployment. I wonder at the type of intelligence that asks such a question. Certainly it has. It increases the consuming power of members of the working classes. Possibly the hon. Member does not understand; possibly he knows very little about working-class conditions, always having had an easy time in his own life. I am confident that this Government will do more, is doing more, with regard to the provision of schemes than the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, who like to go about the country describing themselves as members of the stupid party, could do in a long term of years. You are asking for the solution of the problem in a scheme or a series of schemes that the Government may bring into being. You will not get the solution of the unemployment problem in any such way. You would only get it—[An HON. MEMBER: "By Protection!"] I quite agree. We shall only get it when we get protection—protection against hon. Members opposite and hon. Members below the Gangway, protection against the capitalists, protection against the financial classes. There is something, to
my mind, very pitiful, as a member of the working classes, who knows the circumstances of the working classes, who knows what those unemployed people are passing through, that hon. Members of this House, who are responsible for maintaining the system, who again and again are forced into the position that they cannot deny that the capitalist system cannot provide for the needs of all the people, use the sufferings of the people in an attempt to get at this Government, which has done more in every Department in the short time it has been in office than any other Government has done in as many years as this Government has been in months. The last thing I would say to the Minister of Labour is that I should like to see him to-day tell the House of Commons that one of the things he intends to do is to advise the people who are working for these pitifully low wages that they are getting that he will give the whole influence of the Government to them should they come forward with a demand for increased wages, because the greatest thing he and the Government can do is to use the whole power of the Government to increase the wages of the workers, and through such an increase of wages give a consuming power to the people which will result in the sweeping away of so much of the unemployment that is causing such sorrow to-day.

Mrs. PHILIPSON: I listened with great interest to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rusholme (Mr. Masterman). It was full of criticism. Criticism is useless unless you have something to put in its place, and he had something constructive, which is not usual from hon. Members opposite below the Gangway. He asked the Minister of Labour to adopt a Bill which is being brought in by one of the Members on these benches. That was constructive. There was one point in his speech which appealed to me. He spoke of the housing scheme of the Minister of Health and the building trade. I attended the meeting called by the Minister of Health to meet the building operatives and the manufacturers, and I asked the building operatives' representatives if it was not a fact that under the housing scheme ex-service men would be debarred, and I received an evasive answer. [HON. MEMBERS: "That is not true!"] I want to ask hon. Members below the Gangway when the
housing scheme of the Minister of Health comes before the House if they will join with our party and see that these ex-service men are not debarred from the building trade. I also listened to a maiden speech by the Member for one of the Divisions of Newcastle (Captain Ramage), who talked about our skilled workers leaving the country. I believe he is one of the Members who voted for the removal of the McKenna Duties. I should like to put forward a point that I wanted to make on a former occasion, that when we close our industries down, as he made a great point of the skilled workers leaving the country and going to America—

The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Robert Young): I am very sorry I cannot allow a discussion on the McKenna Duties.

Mrs. PHILIPSON: The hon. Member made a great point of skilled workers—

The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Lady can pursue her argument in relation to the Ministry of Labour, but not in the direction she is now going.

Mr. GWYNNE: On a point of Order. The Minister of Labour himself said during the Debate that our foreign trade was one of the most important things. The whole question whether our skilled men are employed here or abroad is surely in order.

The CHAIRMAN: I cannot allow any discussion in the direction the hon. Lady was going, in relation to the McKenna Duties.

Lieut.-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: The hon. Lady was only following, I think, three speeches which have been made with regard to men leaving the country—the point raised by the hon. Member for West Newcastle (Captain Ramage).

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Is it not a fact that the argument with reference to the proposed dismissal of men as the result of the abolition of the McKenna Duties is merely supposition—hypothetical?

The CHAIRMAN: I cannot permit discussion of the McKenna Duties.

Mrs. PHILIPSON: I was not referring to the McKenna Duties, but to industry. I wanted to say if we are going to close down our industries and send skilled
workers to America, as the hon. Member opposite suggested, what is the use of having cheaply manufactured goods in this country if we have not the boys and girls at work earning the money to buy the goods with, and we want the skilled workers to teach them.

Mr. DICKSON: I think even on the Labour Benches, as well as on the capitalist benches opposite and those below the Gangway, if we are all perfectly frank we shall agree that we should have liked to see the Minister of Labours' schemes mature considerably more rapidly than they have done. I for one am willing to concede that point immediately. The party opposite pays this Government a very considerable tribute in the matter of its ability and intelligence if they assume, as their speeches lead one to believe, that we can in four or five months erase the accumulated stupidity of 40 or 50 years of their economic policy. I believe in part that tribute to our intelligence is justified. Those hon. Gentlemen who have been at it for half a century seem to forget that it takes something like four months to produce an ordinary cabbage in an ordinary garden, and they pretend to be amazed that the party that is unfit to govern, without any special intelligence or brains, without the advantage of university careers and special blood and breeding, cannot in the same or less time than it takes to raise a cabbage create a new heaven and a new earth. We have been asked several times by hon. Members opposite and below the Gangway what our cure is. Members on these benches know perfectly well what our cure is.

Viscount CURZON: What is it?

Mr. DICKSON: I will come to that. It will eliminate you. The particular cure in which we believe is precisely the cure that we shall not be permitted to operate in this Parliament. We have been taunted, with almost parrotlike insistency, with having said at one time that we had a cure for unemployment. We have a cure for unemployment, but we have never said that if we have only a minority Government, controlled more or less by parties which are antagonistic both to us and our policy, we can carry out our unemployment cure. We are being taunted from those benches and in the country with what we promised and
now with what we can perform. May I give hon. Members who are so much concerned with the McKenna Duties an illustration from motor care?

The CHAIRMAN: : We cannot now discuss the McKenna Duties.

Mr. DICKSON: I was not going to do that.

The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member distinctly said he was going to give an illustration.

Mr. DICKSON: I will not mention what I said before. Let me give an illustration from motor cars to bring out my point. Assume that I declare that I want, in order to take a certain hill, or climb a certain gradient, a 40 horsepower car. Thinking in political terms, I ask the electors of this country to give me a 40 horse-power car, but, in their wisdom, they think I am not yet to be trusted with a 40 horse-power car, and they give me an 8–10 Ford. Then the motoring specialists—the speed specialists—opposite say, "Look at these fellows. These fellows tell you what they can do, what, gradients they can climb, what hills they can take, what difficulties they can overcome, but look at that poor crawling thing going along the road." They forget that the electors of this country have only given us, as yet, an 8–10 Ford instead of a 40 horse-power car. When the electors of this country give us that 40 horsepower car, we will leave no doubt in the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite as to the speed at which we shall travel. [Interruption.]

Viscount CURZON: You will get your licence suspended.

Mr. DICKSON: If we have our licence endorsed, we shall at least have the support of one Noble Lord opposite. The cure is only inherent in the abolition of the system in which hon. Members opposite and below the Gangway believe. [Interruption.] I do not know what that noise signifies, but I am going to quote an authority which, I think, will be accepted even by the hon. Gentlemen who have interrupted. The statement I wish to quote is this:
Take again the question referred to a moment ago by the Chairman, and which is pressing itself so urgently upon public attention"—
This was not last week; it was in 1908—
the question of unemployment. So long as the economic conditions of the world are such that in particular trades at all times and in all trades at particular times you have on the one hand an intermittent demand for labour, and on the other hand a casual supply of it—so long as those conditions exist you cannot wholly get rid of unemployment.
That statement was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) at Earlston on the 3rd October, 1908. If I were a journalist on so much a line, that is precisely how I would write that statement; but if I were a sub-editor watching it come in, I would blue-pencil it, and it would read:
Under capitalism you cannot wholly get rid of unemployment.
That is an admission from the benches below the Gangway that so long as they agree to the maintenance of this system of capitalism, so long will they not be able wholly to get rid of unemployment. The alternative is our alternative. It is the destruction—a long process—of the present system of production, distribution and exchange. [An HON. MEMBER: "And of employment."] Unemployment is not itself the evil. There are many noble, aristocratic persons, in this House and outside, who suffer nothing through unemployment. This is the ultimate cure, and we do not run away from it. The only reason why we do not impress it more upon this Parliament and upon the social life of the country is that we yet lack the power which I believe the electors of this country will ultimately give us. I want to quote another authority below the Gangway. I look for the rapidly coming time when the split will divide the sheep from the goats. This is another authority, and I commend it to the attention of the right hon. Gentleman who led the Debate from the Liberal benches. Professor J. M. Keynes, speaking at the summer school at Cambridge said:
The absurdity of labour being from time to time totally unemployed, in spite of every one wanting more goods, can only be due to a muddle which should be remediable if we could only think and act clearly;"—
[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Just a moment; that is only a semi-colon—
indeed, Socialists might, I think, have pushed home this charge more powerfully than they have, inasmuch as the main part
of this muddle is deeply rooted in the peculiarities of the existing economic organisation of society.
We agree. We do not run away from our cure, but there is need immediately for palliatives, and I hope, at least as earnestly as hon. Members opposite, that the Minister and the Government will take their courage in their hands, and will launch whatever schemes are necessary to deal in palliation with the unemployment conditions to-day, and will find the money where it can be found.

Mr. PERCY HARRIS: We have heard a very interesting speech, full of humour, if I may say so, from the hon. Member who has just addressed the Committee, in which he stated the Socialist creed. I happen to represent a London constituency where there has been for the last five years a constant number of men and women either out of work or on short time. They have exercised extraordinary patience and self-control in very difficult circumstances. They have been buoyed up—and all Governments have sinned in this respect—by the hope that they will be employed. Everything has been against them, but, in spite of all their difficulties, they have gone on. At one time they took the desperate step of demonstrating before this House and at other times they have marched through the streets in the hope of getting public sympathy. Now many of them have got further confidence from the fact that there is a Labour Government, and a complete change of personnel in those who are responsible for the government of the country. That has given them hopes and expectations, but, in spite of what my hon. Friend has said, they cannot wait for the millennium—they cannot wait for that Socialist state which my hon. Friend foreshadows. They want to see an immediate prospect of their becoming producers and workers in the industrial army.
We all know that there are some men who are born tired, who are work-shirkers. That is a problem in all branches of society which for many years has puzzled social reformers. But we all know that the great majority of this immense army of a million who are still out of work are miserable and discontented because of idleness. They want to get work; they want to
become producers, if only to get their self-respect. Lancashire has been referred to, and an hon. Member above the Gangway referred to Bristol. I think I can say, in spite of its not being advertised quite so much, that in no part of the country is the problem more difficult or more intense than in London. There has been a very great improvement. I have the figures here, and whoever is responsible—whether it be right hon. Gentlemen opposite or the present Minister of Labour—they show a very substantial improvement. It has been steady and constant, and if you compare the percentage in 1922, in London in particular, it is eminently satisfactory. In 1922, at the same time of the year—the end of April—the proportion was 36.2 per 1,000, and it has now gone down to 26.7. Two years ago, including juveniles and women as well as men, there were 162,000 out of work in the Metropolitan area. That has been reduced to 119,000. The reduction is a satisfactory one, but still the number is immense. Taking the number of men, as apart from women and juveniles, the improvement has been even more satisfactory, the number having gone down from 121,000 to 86,000. The serious part of the matter is that many of these 86,000 men have been practically constantly in and out of work. They may have got an occasional job on the roads, but the bulk of them—and I know many of them personally—have practically been out of work for four years. That is the serious problem which the Government have to face. They have to face now the fact that a large number of men are in great danger of becoming unemployable, not because they are unwilling to work, but because, owing to constant slackness and short time, they are losing their industrial skill.
I am one of those—and I said so in the last House—who do not pin much faith on road work. Roads are very expensive, and only absorb a very small percentage of the men who are out of work. At the present time, in spite of the big schemes for which we have to thank the late Government and the previous Government, when road experts and engineers concentrated on devising new road schemes in and around London—in spite of the co-operation of the London County Council, and the expenditure of no less than £1,500,000 in and outside its area, there are
only 1,100 men working on these main arterial roads. It is rather a shock to us to find that at no time during all this period of unemployment, even in the winter, have more than 7,000 men been employed on these big road schemes. We now have a £3,000,000 road scheme, and I congratulate not only the Minister of Labour, but the Minister of Transport, on the boldness of their schemes and their very satisfactory nature; but I am informed by the engineer in charge that it is anticipated that they will never employ many more than 5,000 men on these schemes, which are not merely in the County of London, but extend miles away out to Sidcup, and even as far as Sevenoaks. I do hope the Committee will not think that we are really going to do very much to help unemployment by road schemes.
7.0 P.M.
I have taken a good deal of trouble to study the London problem. The curious part of the economic problem in London is that there is no place where there is a greater variety of industries and fewer big industries than in London. The two biggest, perhaps, are the building trade and the various branches of transport work. The greatest hope, in my view, at any rate from the point of view of London, is in the idea foreshadowed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rusholme (Mr. Masterman). After what is known as the Addison scheme, great plans were made for building on a large scale, and big estates were acquired. We have now in our possession at the present time, in the East End of London, no less than 3,000 acres, bought by the local authority with the approval of the Government, on which there were to have been built something like 20,000 houses; but, owing to the cutting down of that scheme, all that we have got now is something less than 5,000 houses. It may be said that the Minister of Health has constantly reminded the House that the difficulty is the shortage of labour, and the shortage of bricklayers is a very difficult and immediate problem. At the present time in London, only 1.9 per cent. of bricklayers are out of work, and it is a remarkable thing that there are no less than 12.4 per cent. of persons actually engaged in the building trades out of work. There are actually 22,000 members of the building trades out of employment. Most of them come under the general
classification of labourers. Most of them have spent all their time in the building constructive trades. I am informed that many of these men are competent to perform bricklaying, and, if you put aside prejudice and have a bold scheme, here you can not only find a remedy for unemployment, but materially assist the Government to fulfil their pledges in building the necessary houses. I would go further. To solve the housing problem is only the last step. Roads are to be made, sewers to be cut, water supplies are to be arranged for, and there are a dozen and one industries connected with the developing of estates. I suggest to the Minister that he should not live in a watertight compartment, but should co-operate with the Ministry of Health. Let them give their subsidies not so much for building arterial roads—and the hon. and gallant Member for Battersea (Viscount Curzon) will agree with me that arterial roads are not so important for those who are skilful drivers—let the subsidies be given to building the roads, making the drains and, I suggest, local authorities should be encouraged to buy land to anticipate the housing programme. So will you overcome the problem. There is a great deal of land which, in normal conditions, would be developed by private enterprise, lying idle—land unsuitable for agriculture but ready to be prepared for building purposes.
Important as these things are, there is still a large army of men and women in various industries that neither roads nor housing can absorb. I took the trouble to get from a social student a survey of several trades in an ordinary part of London. It was a revelation, the variety of industries we have in most quarters of the town—the furrier, the sawyer, the bootmaker, the engineer, and there is the labourer, the railway clerk, etc. I could read any page from his book, showing the great variety of industries you have in London which go to make up our unemployed. In most of these various trades a number of men are either out of work or on short time. Now we have under the Ministry of Labour a very complex organisation, built up for dealing with the unemployment question—the machinery of the Employment Exchanges. There has been much criticism, but there it is, the machinery for affording a number of men who want employment the opportunity to
get work. The Geddes Committee recommended that this machinery should be reduced, economised, cut down, and I think I might say that as a result of this, there was a great economy of staff—at any rate, a delay in developing. The Employment Exchanges in some places were quite efficient, but in London, in most areas of the town, they were quite incapable of really efficiently dealing with the problem. To run an efficient Employment Exchange the first thing necessary is a good building. I do not think the Ministry can put that right, for the difficulties of building are too great. Some of these buildings are small, cramped, and quite unsuitable for the purpose. Many of the managers are not quite qualified for the very difficult and arduous task they have to face. In London they have to deal with a great variety of trades, and the only kind of man who can make the machine work successfully in one with great experience and great organising ability.
The Minister of Labour, with his great powers, can do good. Let him speed up the machinery of the Employment Exchanges. Let him make an investigation, and visit the various centres. Let him see the impressive queues of men who go up for employment. Let him see whether these people who have to find work for the unemployed really have knowledge of the area under their charge. Nothing is more oppressive for a man, week in and week out, than going for the dole and asking if a job is going, only to be told that there are no opportunities. All the Employment Exchanges can do is to note the particular trade the man has, and, if there be no vacancy in that particular trade, to turn him away. I suggest that at a time like this something more is required. Many of the industries of the East End of London will probably never be restored, following the changes caused by the War—changes in methods and in the markets. The men are met with the usual answer, "Nothing doing." The organiser ought to be in a position to find whether these men can be trained for new occupations. He should know whether a factory producing some particular article—work for which this or that man is qualified—could be found to employ him. My hon. Friends above the Gangway have a Socialist ideal. "Cannot a Socialist Government do something to better organise itself?" Cannot it do
something to get a better knowledge of industry, and to find out what is wrong, and whether a particular trade is suffering from lack of capital, or from old-fashioned methods? Let the Minister get more in touch with the President of the Board of Trade. The President of the Board of Trade has denied that he was responsible for finding the markets for our trade. He cannot find markets unless he has more information of the trades that want markets. Here you have, through the Employment Exchanges, all the machinery, not only to get that information, but to help to get jobs for the unemployed.
I believe there is a great opening for closer co-operation between the Ministry and the President of the Board of Education. The Ministry of Labour—the last Ministry of Labour is equally guilty—is rather inclined to take the business of training out of the hands of the Board of Education and to take it under its own cloak. The other day the Minister spoke with very great pride of what the Government is doing in its juvenile employment centres. I do not know what is happening in the rest of the country, but I do know this, that the machinery in London has been a failure. The young people between the ages of 16 and 18 get in training about three weeks, and the average attendance at the 20 centres is 75. Most of the people are only half qualified. They are doing their best with the plant and buildings at their disposal, but they are not qualified teachers. I suggest to the Minister that if he is to do really good work by way of training these young people and helping to get them into industry he should not divorce himself from the Board of Education, but try to get their willing co-operation, and to get these centres under the control of really well-qualified, highly-trained, technical experts, so that much of this energy which is now going to waste can be absorbed.
In a great number of trades there is great depression, but despite this, there is still a demand for highly-skilled, technical labour—men who understand the elaborate machines that are more and more being used in most of the smaller industries in the country. I think the President of the Board of Trade said the other day that it was quite a delusion to think that the most important things were the big trades. Equally important
were the hundred and one small industries that go a long way to make up our exports and employ our labour. If only the Minister of Labour will co-operate with the Board of Education to see that these labour training centres are made a reality instead of only a name, he will do a considerable amount to train these young men and get them absorbed into the industries of the country. I believe there are very great opportunities in this direction. It may not be confined to young people between the ages of 16 and 18. If many of the men out of work—men above the age of 18—were encouraged to get proper training, and if the Government had the courage, when they are trained, to make it possible for them to enter the great trade union organisations, this would do much to improve the situation. What has discouraged so many of our discharged soldiers is the few opportunities that are given to them for training, and that when they take advantage of whatever training is offered to them, no openings are found for them through the organisation of the Employment Exchanges.
I have attempted not to criticise the Ministry of Labour. We have all a joint responsibility. It is no use talking of the past. Election speeches are soon forgotten by the public, and even when pledges are broken, the electorate is very forgiving if they see that the Government of the day really mean business, and has some idea of dealing with a real, living question like this. The unemployed have shown exemplary patience. We are all agreed that they have waited long enough, and they ask the Government to deliver the goods. If they do nobody will be better pleased than hon. Members below the Gangway, who put them in office in order to give them an opportunity of showing what they were made of and of making, if they were able to do so, some contribution towards the solution of this most important problem.

Major KINDERSLEY: I cannot help feeling rather sorry for the Minister of Labour. His feelings, I should think, must be those which we have when we have experienced one of those nightmares, when we are about to make a speech or give an amateur conjuring show or something of that kind. There is the audience before us, all waiting expectantly. We go on the stage, and
suddenly our minds become blank, we cannot utter a word or cannot do the trick. Here was a full expectant House waiting for the production of a remedy for unemployment, and we had simply a series of excuses. First, he said that some wicked people wrote to the papers and said that when the Labour Government came into office the £ would drop to a penny. Of course, it was very silly, and perhaps, if they had known then what we know now, that the Labour party never keep their pledges, they would not have written in that manner. But if people thought that the Labour party were going to carry out the programme which they put before the country, not only would the £ drop to a penny, but it would disappear altogether.
Some hon. Members sitting behind my right hon. Friend have been a little more honest, because they have said definitely that there is a remedy, but I will come to that point in a moment. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that we had got into trouble in the East, because, I think he pointed out, some malignant genius had been roaming about there doing harm, and that therefore the East were not buying our cotton goods. Does he suggest that the boll weevil is due to that malignant genius, and that the rise in the price of cotton, which is the cause which prevents our selling our cotton goods in India, is due to that malignant genius? The thing is absurd. I understood him to say that the people of India had taken a dislike to us because of the way they were treated, and for that reason they were not buying our cotton goods. That is the most extraordinary suggestion that I have over heard in my life. The Minister told us that he had reduced the number of unemployed by something like 240,000, but he had to admit that, to some extent, that reduction of unemployment is seasonal, and he had to admit that that reduction, in so far as it is not seasonal, is due to the operation of the schemes which were prepared by my right hon. Friends on this side and put into operation and continued by the right hon. Gentleman himself. Therefore, it is correct to say that he himself has contributed nothing towards the solution of the problem of unemployment. The right hon. Gentleman said that he was exploring various avenues. One was the
harnessing of the Severn tides. We all know that
There is a tide in the affairs of men Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune,
and we may hope that possibly the Minister may find in that the remedy for which he is looking. After that, if he found that the Severn tides were not successful, he was going to the Wash, but I warn him that there was a very unpopular Monarch who came to grief there and lost his clothes in the Wash.
The remedy in which hon. Members opposite believe is Socialism. They think you will never solve this unemployment problem until you have nationalised all the means of distribution, production and exchange. They say, quite truly, that they cannot put this remedy into operation in this House as it is at present constituted. Now remember that there are 800,000 people who are going to be permanently unemployed in this country, according to your own figures, and there are over 1,000,000 to-day, and you believe that you have a remedy, though I do not believe it, and yet you sit there and do not go to the country, as we went to the country, and say, "We have got a remedy in which we believe. Give us a mandate." You sit there and do nothing. We at least, though we may have been wrong in our remedy, had the courage of our convictions. We thought of the unemployed; we sacrificed the future of our party to the unemployed. If you believe that you have a remedy you ought to have the courage of your convictions, and say, "This is our remedy for unemployment. Give us a mandate." Why do you not do so? Because you know that you would come back a great deal smaller party than you are to-day. That is all you care for unemployment.
If that is not the remedy of the Front Bench, then let them produce their remedy, but I suggest that it is, and I suggest that it is not produced because it is very inconvenient. You cannot produce that remedy out of the hat, and at the same time allow the Chancellor of the Exchequer to go to the City and make to the bankers, as he did last night or the night before, speeches in which he preaches the most Conservative economic doctrines. On which leg are you going to stand? Is your policy the policy of the Front Bench, or the hon.
Gentlemen behind? They are two totally different policies, and you know it. You come here and talk smooth things to the City, and then you go to the constituencies and preach class hatred and bitter Socialism. Right hon. Gentlemen get their salaries by sending their emissaries into the constituencies to promise the people everything which they know they cannot give, and they sit there and take their rewards. It is absolutely dishonest.
Not only have the Government done nothing for unemployment, but they have done two things which would tend to increase it. I cannot discuss the McKenna Duties, but one of these things is the removal of these duties, and the other is the way the Government have treated Imperial preference. The emigration figures before the War were something like 300,000 a year. If you multiply that by five war years you get 1,500,000. Emigration since then has not been so great as before the War. The Minister of Labour was right when he said that if things remain as they are we must have in this country about 800,000 permanently unemployed, because you have a surplus population owing to the cessation of emigration. To my mind there is one way of dealing with the question. That is by a thorough scientific scheme of Empire settlement. If you were to go to the country and ask them to give you £200,000,000, or £300,000,000, if you like, for this purpose, and if you were to take these unemployed in groups, in whole villages, in whole districts, and settle them in our Empire overseas and look after them for three or four or five years until they were on their feet, then I believe you would solve the unemployment problem
Remember that every family you send out there becomes a potential customer of this country, and that those who are left behind will have employment here. But I believe that that can only be done if at the same time we recognise the system of Imperial Preference. I should not be in order in discussing that, but the whole scheme of Empire development must go together, and it is not facing the facts not to take advantage of this enormous undeveloped estate which we as an Empire have. It seems to be perfectly childish to sit here with all this misery and degradation caused by unemployment when you have only got to lift up
your eyes and look around and see the territories and the vast undeveloped sources of potential wealth amid which men can lead prosperous healthy lives. Have you not any vision about this? Do you realise that in 1880 the overseas trade of the four great Dominions was £112,000,000 and that, in 1921, it had become £1,026,000,000, and if you look forward 20 years you will probably have double and treble that. Can you not look at this thing from a dynamic point of view and not from a static point of view?
If the statesmen 40 years ago had had the vision to see what our Colonies were going to become, do you think that our policy would be what it is to-day? If we looked forward 30 or 40 years and see the potentialities of the Colonies, we could solve this problem in a few years. Unless we have that vision, I believe that the problem is insoluble. We do not want a victory for this or that economic theory. I do not believe in hide-bound Protection or Free Trade. I believe in doing the thing which will produce results. The great mistake which hon. Gentlemen opposite make is that they will talk in abstract terms; they will talk about Socialism, internationalism, Free Trade and the State. But when you boil these things down they come ultimately to men and women and flesh and blood. All these schemes, all these "isms" and theories have got to be judged by their result on flesh and blood. Do they make the men, women and children of the country more prosperous? If they do not, if they make their case worse, I have no use for them; I do not care what the theories are. If you could only think more in terms of the individual instead of in terms of the abstract, I am certain that we should find a real solution of this problem far more quickly than we are able to do at the moment.

Mr. EGAN: I have listened to the statement of the Minister of Labour with some disappointment and with some surprise. I am disappointed with the scheme that he laid before the Committee for dealing with unemployment. There is one very important matter to which I will refer, and to which I hope the House will give its approbation, because it would go a long way towards solving our unemployment difficulties. I refer to the question of water conservation. It will be agreed that a cheap and plentiful
supply of water for industry in all its phases is one of the essentials of the trade of our country. What I have in mind is a scheme which would provide work for large numbers of ex-service men. At the end of the War millions of men who had served at the front came back to this country. They had lived in trenches for days and days on end. Suppose that when the War was over we had sent surveying boards into the country to survey the land from Land's End to John o' Groats, and to mark out sites for reservoirs from which all the towns and villages of the country could be supplied with water. What we did was to bring back to this country men who had in them the seeds of consumption and all sorts of lung diseases, men who had been gassed, and we sent them into the slums and to the vile houses that they occupy to-day. There has been an outcry ever since for the building of sanatoria throughout the country. It is said now that it is impossible to go ahead with that kind of work because it would take away the labour that we want for housing. I agree. But I suggest that the time has come when the Government might well consider the removal from the shoulders of the municipalities of the water supply of the country, and make it a national obligation.
Only the big cities can afford to bring water long distances in order to supply their population. Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow have expended millions and those millions represent a very heavy tax on industry. They are a very heavy tax on all our engineering and shipbuilding towns. Let the Minister take these ex-service men now and find them work in connection with water conservation. There would be no need for building material or for robbing the building industry of its skilled workmen. Most of the men who were in the Army were accustomed to digging themselves in, and in the trenches they lay for days and weeks. Why not take them, thousands of them, and transport them to the hills, and give them the benefit of God's fresh air so that they can clear consumption out of their bodies? There is an Ordnance Survey Department, and all we want is access to the mountain lands. It would be possible from one end of the country to the other to employ these men on reservoir construction, and this summer million of the unemployed who are now
drawing money for nothing would have bred in them a love of the land. Some of them would stop on the land. We would thus be promoting an agricultural race, which is the very thing that we want to do if the country is to be preserved.
I am a member of the Local Legislation Committee. Other hon. Members who have served on that Committee will agree that the time and money spent in promoting Bills in this House, because of the contention between various localities about the supply of water, does not indicate that we are an intelligent race. I say, therefore, that the money we are spending for nothing, except to provide a bare subsistence for the unemployed, could be spent so as to take hundreds of thousands of unemployed, especially ex-service men who are receiving medical treatment, out into the country to do useful work. That would solve part of our difficulty at once. Take them up into the mountains. Let the water supply be made a national obligation, and remove that tax from industry. I understand that the matter has been considered, and that a Commission has reported. That being so, all the necessary information is in the archives of the House. Give these men a pick and shovel each, mark out where the reservoir is to be made, and the work can be begun. That would be of immediate benefit to the country and to the ex-service men who are now fading away, to say nothing of the men who are demoralised by standing day after day in queues waiting for the miserable pittance that the Government is able to give them.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I do not mind making the frank confession that I have sometimes been sorry for myself when standing at the Treasury Bench as Minister of Labour. I have never been half as sorry for myself as I was this afternoon for my right hon. Friend. He is far too candid and far too plain-speaking a character for the job that he had at 4 o'clock to-day. What is the position? When we were doing all that we knew to find work for these poor men and to make work schemes, the Labour party poured scorn and derision on our efforts. I do not want to quote any pledge; I have done a lot of that recently and I shall not offend by repetition. I will, however, paraphrase the statements of members of
the Labour party. They said that our schemes were wholly inadequate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] That statement is endorsed to-day. Hon. Members had better talk to their Minister. We were told that our schemes only touched the fringe of the tragic problem, that we were indifferent and unconcerned, merely seeking to buy off discontent and disaffection. That is how our attitude was described—buying off discontent and disaffection by doing as little as we possibly could. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] That, too, is endorsed to-day. Again I say that hon. Members had better talk to their Minister. We were doing as much as he has disclosed to us this afternoon. What were the people told. "Wait until Labour takes charge. Then will the lives of these poor people begin to be worth living." When is it to begin? "Then indeed would the 100,000 for whom work had been found be readily and immediately multiplied ten-fold. Then indeed would the craftsmen"—I remember an eloquent speech by the hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Mills) on the subject—"no longer be compelled to lose his craft by-being put on to pick and shovel work in road making."
Labour had all its schemes ready for three years. The President of the Board of Trade told us on 1st August last in this House that they were ready as the result of the Joint Conference on Unemployment with the Labour party. There were great schemes of electrical power development, a great overhaul of our canals and waterways, of our docks and harbour facilities, land reclamation on a scale worth talking about. The fiery cross went from platform to platform, "Work not Doles." And the poor people said "This at last is something like. You chaps have a try." And we all came down this afternoon prepared to hear and to cheer all these new developments. I say that with honesty. I came down ready to hear and to cheer all these new developments that were to hurry on the social millenium. What did the Minister say? He described how this Government has been carrying out our schemes. He lifted a rabbit out of the hat. But it is not his rabbit. Observe this further: The rabbit, which last year the Labour party said was the most puny, the most wretched, the most skinny creature that ever escaped a lethal chamber, is to-day lifted from the hat with ostentatious
pride and self-satisfaction, and is smoothed down most affectionately by the right hon. Gentleman, and we are told that there never was a bigger or better developed animal. But look at the condition in which it was six months ago. In any case it is not his rabbit. He hangs garlands round its neck and proudly exhibits it to a wondering world as Labour's vindication of Labour's pledges. As my right hon. Friend proceeded with a loud voice, that proclaims a very bad case, let me tell him that I mumbled to myself, with Truthful James:
Do I sleep, do I dream,
Do I wonder and doubt?
Are things what they seem,
Or is visions about?
I undertake to say that millions of our fellow-countrymen and women will think that when they read to-morrow morning's newspapers. There it is. We have got to take up the burden once more of gingering up the Labour party on unemployment. We must electrify them into an electrical power scheme. We must electrify them into the reclamation of land, which was in their scheme three years ago, and is not yet touched. Neither is any electrical power scheme yet touched. We must ginger them up on this great overhaul of our canals and waterways, of our docks and harbour facilities, all ready for immediate use three years ago.
I am going to sit down with a question, but whoever the Government spokesman may be, I shall certainly put my question very courteously. Since the Government are going to begin to do something, at least, with all these schemes that were cut-and-dried and ready for immediate use three years ago, and since there is no money for any of these schemes in the Budget, will the Government spokesman tell me this. On what day next week—and, remember, this is urgent; the unemployed cannot wait; it was the main plank of the Labour party's programme at the election, and they would be the last to wish that it should wait—on what day next, week will the Supplementary Estimates for these schemes, now, if you please, to be entered upon, be put down for this very urgent matter, and, roughly, how many millions of money in the aggregate will those Supplementary Estimates involve?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Miss Bondfield): I will answer that questior first. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara) puts forward a hypothesis based on a false premise, he cannot be surprised if he does not get an effective answer. The whole assumption is based on a wrong statement of the situation. I want to deal, if I may, with the figures. The right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir W. Joynson-Hicks), and the right hon. Member for North-West Camberwell, have both made use of quotations in which the words "inadequate" and "belated" occur. Let mo give the Committee a little history, if I may, for a moment. In 1917 a conference was called, and a programme was submitted by the Labour party and Trade Union Congress combined—it was called a Joint Committee—to the Government of the day, with an urgent request that the Government would settle down to a visualisation of what the situation would be on the declaration of Peace. There is not a thing mentioned to-day that has been done by either Liberal, Conservative or Coalition Government that was not in that programme. Therefore, if we are going to discuss the authenticity of the parentage of the rabbit, there is no question whatever that, prior to the programme put forward then, these particular subjects did not appear in the programme of any Government in connection with the demobilisation of soldiers and the return to normal industry.
The next step was in 1918–19, when a series of deputations urged the Government to have a little foresight and to recognise that it was inevitable that the change from war-time industry to normal industry must of necessity be accompanied by almost a disastrous upset to Labour, as was the change from peace to war time in 1914–15. Time after time that was pointed out, and I speak with authority, because I was a member of many of the deputations, and I remember the statements made by the leaders, and the replies given by the leading spokesmen of the Government. Our point is this, that none of these things can be brought about in a little while, that none of these things is capable of being treated as a mere temporary solution of any of these
matters, that it is a question of continuous policy based upon a perfectly clear realisation of a plan which must be extended over a period of years, and it was quite definitely laid down by us, as a part of the policy, that these things involve national, collective action, The attitude of the Government of that day, right up to about the middle of 1919, was, "We have had enough of collective enterprise; we have had enough of State organisation. Scrap everything that has been built up in the form of collective enterprise. Let us go back to private enterprise." And a campaign swept the country from one end to the other to try to destroy, as quickly as possible, all those great reforms of organisation that had been built up as a war-time necessity.
We protested against the demolition of the machinery that had been built up. We declared that it would be as necessary to have Government control of raw material and of labour during this transition period from war to peace, as it was during the War itself. That line of conduct was rejected, and we were called all kinds of names from one end of the country to the other, as being impossiblists and dreamers, and so on. Everything we predicted would happen has happened, and the policy that would have carried us over the period of great depression might very easily have been avoided. It is true, from the point of view of historical continuity, that when there was no possibility of avoiding the fact that private enterprise had failed utterly to meet the situation, gradually, one by one, very reluctantly, and usually as a seasonal measure, these schemes were taken up—road schemes, juvenile employment centres, for a few months in the winter—and every spring we were told that now had come a great revival of trade, and there was no further necessity. When the Prime Minister took office, he stated definitely that, in so far as the Government found schemes that were going in the right direction towards the solution of these problems, his policy was a policy of continuity.
In that respect I want to give the Committee the figures of the programmes for road construction and maintenance drawn up by the different Governments since 1920. The first programme started in 1920–21. It was estimated up to 1923
that it would cost £25,500,000, and arrangements were made for grants in aid from the Road Fund. That programme, which will not be completed until 1926–27, is steadily going on. In October, 1923, the Government sanctioned £11,750,000. It is earmarked, and it is available for the schemes which the late Government sanctioned, but very little of that £11,750,000 has been spent. Nevertheless, those schemes have not been interfered with by us. We are doing everything we can to expedite these schemes for which the £11,750,000 was earmarked. In addition to that, since we came in office, we have arranged for £13,500,000, which includes very practical steps that will touch those areas that are suffering most from industrial depression. There is, for example, the Glasgow-Edinburgh road, which is now ready to be started. All the negotiations have been completed, and one hopes that work will be actually started probably next week or in a fortnight's time.

Mr. BETTERTON: For the purpose of clearness, could the hon. Member say whether the £13,500,000 to which she referred is part of the £14,000,000 for which we made provision?

Miss BONDFIELD: It is not a part, but an addition to that. The £14,000,000 quoted so often is really the £11,750,000, because there was a certain scheme—one of the road schemes, I think—which was finally not sanctioned, so that the actual amount sanctioned is £11,750,000. The original scheme put up was for £14,000,000, and the £13,500,000 is entirely in addition to either of those other figures, and the money is being spent. In addition to that, the £6,000,000, which was released as soon as the Trade Facilities Bill passed its final stages, now becomes operative. That £6,000,000, I venture to suggest, is a complete fulfilment of that phrase about "scores of schemes," because they are schemes which we have sanctioned since we came into office. They include a Glasgow to Edinburgh scheme, which will give relief in industrial areas so badly pressed in Glasgow. The scheme—I believe it is a railway scheme—is now ready, and will mean £2,000,000. Most of the schemes are smaller schemes.

Mr. MASTERMAN: I think it is important that we should be clear on the
point. Is this the Glasgow-Edinburgh road?

8.0 P.M.

Miss BONDFIELD: I will give the exact particulars of the scheme later. There is a number of other little schemes which will help the secondary industries and the smaller groups of employers. As a great number of them are connected with engineering, they will help very much such districts as Sheffield and similar engineering centres. Of the £6,000,000 guaranteed, £1,000,000 is for the Lithuanian Government in respect of railway and engineering materials. One of the schemes which will assist, directly and indirectly, the engineering centres. £2,000,000 is for the big waterpower scheme of Lochaber for the North British Aluminium Company, and £1,500,000 is for shipbuilding, chiefly the Anchor and Henderson Lines.

Mr. MASTERMAN rose—

HON. MEMBERS: Order!

Mr. MASTERMAN: The hon. Member has very courteously given way to me. Consequently there is no reason for hon. Members to object. I am only anxious to get the correct figures. The Glasgow-Edinburgh road was included in the £14,000,000 scheme of the late Government.

Miss BONDFIELD: I apologise to the Committee, because I have put two notes too close together, without recognising the difference. The £2,000,000 for the Glasgow-Edinburgh Road, which the hon. Member says was included in the £14,000,000 scheme, was never operative under the late Government. We have made it operative. That is the point I wish to make. Another point I wish to emphasise very clearly in connection with this matter, is that we did urge, and we have never pretended otherwise, that these schemes for the solution of unemployment will take a considerable time to mature. I do not think that any hon. Members on either side of the Committee, especially those who have a personal acquaintance with the gigantic nature of the various interests that have to be consulted, the various authorities from which co-ordination have to be secured, will deny for one moment that, if you are going to build first-class motor roads, for example, it cannot be done in four months. You cannot come to the House
with a scheme until you have consulted the authorities of the places through which the road is going to pass, until you have consulted the property owners, whose opposition may force us to come to the House for compulsory powers. You cannot get these things moving in a short space of time
What we criticised, and rightly and properly criticised, and what we have endeavoured to avoid, was the short-time views expressed by the programmes of previous Governments. There is no speaker of any weight or authority on our side of the House who, in dealing with these great constructive proposals, has assumed that it was possible for them to mature in the space of four months. Please remember that, when we have offered criticism to Governments in power, before we were put into the position in which we are now, our criticism has been not of the question of four months or even four years, but of the continuous succession of Governments, spread over a period as long as Parliament itself has lasted—Governments that have possessed more or less solid and effective majorities—who have not used their solid and effective majorities to carry through schemes. Therefore, it was perfectly clear that no one outside a lunatic asylum would have assumed that the Labour Government could, in a House in which we form a minority and in which we can only get the Closure by the consent of the other parties, pass the legislation necessary to acquire the land of the country for the general purposes of the country; to acquire powers over the railway interests of the country, which would be of advantage to the whole community; to acquire control over those forms of property which stand in the way of development, the great roads and the waterways. These things cannot be done by administrative action. They can only be done by coming to a House of Commons with a majority sufficient to secure the necessary legislative powers.

Major KINDERSLEY: If that be the case, and that is your remedy, why do you not go and ask the country to give it to you?

Miss BONDFIELD: I do not know whether that represents the opinion of the Front Opposition Bench, but I will come to the right hon. Gentleman presently. I want to deal, just for one moment, with some of the criticisms that have been
made. Several hon. Members who have spoken in this Debate, have referred to these fundamental questions, and perhaps it will not be out of order if I again make a declaration which has been made from every platform of my party in connection with what we believe to be the fundamental things. We believe that the land, mines, railways and the main roads should be a national responsibility, and used for the welfare and well-being of all the other miscellaneous trades in the country; and we believe that these things, by a progressive education of opinion, will undoubtedly eventually come to pass.

Mr. ERSKINE: Are you going to the country on that?

Miss BONDFIELD: I suggest that we have been to the country many times on that programme, and the right hon. Member for Rusholme (Mr. Masterman) told the Committee in his speech that there were two questions for which, in his opinion, and for which, in the opinion of the Prime Minister, the country has not given a mandate; one is for our full programme of socialisation, and the other is for the right hon. Gentleman's programme of Protection. Therefore, it is useless to ask: "Will you go to the country with this programme?" We have been, and we propose to go again. Every time we go to the country—and this is the significant thing about it—we increase the number of people who vote for us. Next time we go to the country I believe we shall be able to come back to this House with a sufficient majority to enable us to carry the policy. The Labour party is in a peculiarly fortunate position in this sense. Right hon. and hon. Members have suggested from time to time—and I do not object to it, it is a perfectly fair debating point—that we are afraid to go to the country. Not at all. It is open to hon. Gentlemen to send us to the country whenever they think fit.
There is one serious point which has been raised in Debate, in which I appeal for help from all sides of the House for the necessary propaganda that will be required in order to carry through what most of us believe to be vital to the efficiency of our industries. I refer to electrification. I would say quite frankly that the experience of the electricity commissioners—perhaps I may venture to refer to them in this respect; I do not think I
am trespassing too much—and, certainly, the feeling of all those of us who are keen about electrical development, is that one of the greatest obstacles in its way is that we cannot get the country to use even the facilities which now exist. I am speaking of the inherent conservatism which, up to a certain point, is perhaps quite a good thing. On this question of the newer methods of industry, there are many people who do not take advantage of the great development of electrical power provided, for example, in the North-Eastern electricity scheme which has been developed. There, power is produced from that system which is as cheap as any power in Canada or in the United States, and yet the people who are actually on the road of the current cannot be persuaded to take advantage of it. This place is probably the finest in the whole country for popularising an idea, or, at any rate, it can be used effectively for publicity to endeavour to secure that the smaller industries, as well as the domestic consumer, should take up this question of power. It is a most vital and important thing that this question of the use of electrical power should be popularised. It should be talked about in order that people may become familiar with it, and in order that they may make use of the extensive schemes of electrification that are now in operation. It is an unusual situation, that a new great power like the electricity supply should be ahead of the effective demand, but that happens to be the position in one or two parts of the country. There is another point on which I think it vitally important to say something, because two hon. Members in the Debate have raised the question, quite under a misapprehension. I refer to the question of the Imperial Conference Resolutions. Two hon. Members said that the Government have done nothing about these Resolutions. Those hon. Members must have very short memories, or else they are not paying attention to what is happening. Out of 32 Resolutions passed by the Imperial Economic Conference, no less than 28 have been accepted by the Government, two have been definitely rejected, and two are still under consideration.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but the DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Miss BONDFIELD: Out of the 32 Resolutions 28 have been—[HON. MEMBERS: "Divide!"]

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but the DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Entwistle) withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

It being a Quarter past Eight of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS, under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

CENTRAL LONDON AND METROPOLITAN DISTRICT RAILWAY COMPANIES BILL.

Order for Third Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

Mr. H. MORRISON: On the Order Paper, I notice that an Amendment has been put down for the rejection of this Bill. Do I understand that the Amendment is not to be moved by the hon. Member in whose name it stands and, if so, will it be in Order for me to move either the Amendment which stands upon the Paper or a Motion to re-commit the Bill?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Entwistle): If any hon. Member move an Amendment to the Question before the House, I must consider it.

Mr. MORRISON: I beg to move to leave out the words "now read a Third time," and to add instead thereof the word "recommitted."
I am sorry that the hon. Members who put down the Amendment for the rejection of this Bill have not persisted in their Amendment. I consider it desirable in view of the contents of the Bill that it should be discussed by the House at this stage. I should not have taken an interest in this particular Bill had it not been that I saw on the Order Paper of the House notice of an Amendment for its rejection, and as it was a London Bill
I thought it was proper that London Members should take some interest in it. Returning from Toxteth this morning I took the opportunity of reading through the Bill and I am very much surprised at the way in which the questions dealt with by the Bill are handled, and with the contents of the Bill in certain important respects. The points which I wish to bring before the House are a little complicated, and I am afraid it will be necessary to detain the House for a short time in dealing with the provisions. In Clause 5 the Bill as it left the Committee, it is provided that the use of the sub-soil under public streets and thoroughfares shall be without any payment of compensation. I have had experience of public authorities, and if a tramway wishes to use the lower part of a railway bridge for the purpose of connecting overhead wires, it has to seek the consent of the railway company and has oven to pay a rent in recognition of the legal rights of the railway company, although such overhead wires are in the public interest and are necessary for the purposes of the tramway.
Here we have a private Bill promoted by the Central London Railway and the Metropolitan District Railway, which secures the right to tunnel under the property of public authorities, without any legal recognition of the right of the municipality over its own streets and the sub-soil thereunder, and without any payment to the ratepayers of London for this very valuable concession. I do not wish to press the point too far, as to whether they should pay rent for such use, because it is probable the cost would be made up out of the fares which passengers pay, and I would not have raised the point had it not been that Clause 7 provides that where the company tunnels under private property they pay an easement to the property owners. They have compulsory rights to tunnel under property in public ownership, but they have to pay to tunnel under privately-owned property—which, I submit, is not equitable and is not sound public policy. This is typical of the way in which private monopoly rides roughshod over the rights of ratepayers, while always willing to pay tribute to the interests of private concerns. We are entitled to some explanation from the right hon. and learned Member for Ealing (Sir H. Nield) and from the right hon. Member
for South Hammersmith (Sir William Bull) as to why there should be this marked distinction in the treatment of private interests compared with public interests. Clause 6 gives some indication, though only a rough and inadequate indication, as to the erection and the situation of a subway from street to station. Those who have travelled by Underground Railway in London are aware that it is sometimes a serious question whether, considering the time taken to walk from the surface to the tube station or to walk to a main line station, like Liverpool Street, it would not be quicker to walk to the destination which one desires to reach rather than take the roundabout routes provided.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I do not think that what the hon. Member is saying now is strictly relevant to the subject of recommittal. The Motion to recommit is very definite, and the hon. Member must give reasons for that recommittal, but he cannot go into a long argument on the details of the Bill.

Mr. MORRISON: I am in your hands, Sir. I wish to recommit the Bill because in my judgment it is unsatisfactory in many respects and should be given further consideration by the Committee on certain points of detail. I am bringing before the House points which do not appear to have been adequately considered in Committee. If it is necessary that I should move another Motion in order to give a wider discussion I shall do so.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member should confine himself to the reasons and the arguments in favour of recommittal. He cannot go right into all the details of the Bill.

Mr. MORRISON: The difficulty is that I wish to go through the provisions of the Bill which, in my judgment, are unsatisfactory, and I am prepared to move a different Motion, if it is necessary to do so, in order to enable me to discuss these points adequately, and at the same time keep within the ruling of the Chair. I am not satisfied on the wording of Clause 6 that adequate consideration has been given to the point that the subway laid down will be the most expeditious route from point to point, because of my experience with various
subways in connection with these railways in London. The journeys that one has to walk in these subways are considerable, and it is for that reason that I am anxious that the Committee shall reconsider the point, in order that it may be satisfied, as I think it is not satisfied—certainly I am not—that it has adequate guarantees that the shortest route for that subway has to be made. The way in which people have to walk long distances through many of these monotonous subways is scandalous. There is a further point, which is raised in Clause 8 of the Bill, as to which it seems to me that the interests of property are likely to be endangered, and as to which it is not at all clear that the Committee has given proper consideration to the points raised. Clause 8 is rather a remarkable Clause, which appears to provide that an individual property, which may be an extensive property, can be cut in half or can even be cut to a greater extent. From the wording of the Clause it appears to me that adequate consideration has not been given to the point that it really is a serious matter for the owners of property to have their property dismembered and split up in this particular way.
In Clause 11 of the Bill there is rather a remarkable provision, as to which I am very lacking in clearness, on the question as to whether proper consideration has been given to it by the Committee. There is apparently a general plan which determines the route that the subway must take, but there is a remarkable provision that the subway may deviate vertically from the levels on the plan to an extent of 10 feet. We ought to receive an assurance that the Committee gave full consideration as to whether or not coming up from that level to 10 feet above would endanger buildings and so on which would be above the street level and above the soil. I am not satisfied that this provision is really safe, and I think the Committee should reconsider it. Indeed, I am not at all sure that the whole structure of tubes in London is not unsound from the point of view of the most economical working, but this deviation from a plan seems to be a very serious thing, and I think we ought to have proper assurances that that deviation will not endanger the property which may be above.
Clause 12 is another Clause which appears, within restrictions, it is true, to
give the company the power to disturb the surface of streets and to use the streets in connection with the works proposed in the Bill. There is a Bill going through the House, which has now gone through Standing Committee B, the London Traffic Bill, for which the Minister of Transport is responsible, and that has laid down very severe restrictions on the opening up of streets, and I want to be clear whether the Committee has taken into account the effect of Clause 12 of this Bill upon the restrictions on the opening of streets laid down by the London Traffic Bill. I submit that that in itself is a very substantial reason why the Bill should go back to the Committee, in order that its relation to the London Traffic Bill should be adequately considered. Clause 13 deals with the question of compensation for damage by the working of subways. It is evidently contemplated that the making of a subway may risk the subsidence of property, and it has apparently been appreciated by the Committee that that might not be felt for a considerable time. But has the Committee taken into account whether two years is an adequate period, and whether it is not quite possible that after the expiry of two years subsidence might take place? I think it is in the experience of some hon. Members, particularly those associated with the mining industry, that sometimes subsidence consequent upon tunnelling takes years before it takes place, and it does not appear to me, on the face of it, that two years is an adequate time.

Mr. HANNON: On a point of Order. May I ask whether the hon. Member is in order in calling attention to these details in the text of this Bill after they have had full and adequate examination upstairs?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I have already told the hon. Member that he must restrict himself to the Motion he is moving, which is a Motion for re-committal, and the reasons for it. He has strayed somewhat from that ruling, and I must now once more warn him to keep strictly within the ruling.

Mr. MORRISON: I am exceedingly sorry. The last thing that I wish to do is to get outside your ruling. Would it be competent for me, because I want to raise these points, which are points of
substance, to withdraw my Motion and substitute for it an Amendment that the Bill should be read upon this day six months, so that my remarks and those of the right hon. and learned Member for Ealing (Sir H. Nield) might not be unnecessarily restricted?

Sir H. NIELD: Never mind me!

Mr. MORRISON: I wish to be in order, and it would simplify the situation if I could substitute that Motion.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: It is not my business in the Chair to give advice, and I am afraid the hon. Member must take what course he thinks fit. He said he was moving to recommit the Bill, and I am ruling on that. He has not made the Motion, however, and he can please himself on that point.

Mr. HANNON: On a point of Order. May I ask whether it would be helpful to the difficult task of Committees upstairs dealing with private Bills if all their work is reviewed in this House, as is being done by the hon. Member?

Mr. MORRISON: I beg to move, to leave out the word "now," and, at the end of the Question, to add the words "upon this day six months."

Mr. HANNON: On a point of Order. Is that Motion in order, without previous notice on the Paper?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: It is an Amendment to the Question, and it is in order.

Mr. MORRISON: I am obliged to you, Sir. I feel now very much more free. It is entirely my fault that I began to move a Motion on which I was rather more restricted, and I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and to the House. Clause 18 of the Bill, in view of other provisions to which I shall shortly draw attention—

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: On a point of Order. May I ask, for my enlightenment, if it is in order for an hon. Member to move that a Bill be read upon this day six months without having handed in an Amendment, even a manuscript Amendment, but by merely springing it as an Amendment in the middle of a speech in which he was ruled out of order?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I have already ruled on that question. It is not necessary to give notice, and an Amendment can be moved to leave out the word "now," and to insert at the end of the Question the words "upon this day six months."

Mr. BUCHANAN: On a point of Order. Has it not always been the custom for a Member moving the rejection of a Bill to give notice to Members who support the Bill?

Captain HACKING: On a point of Order. Is it not a fact that there is on the Order Paper an Amendment to read the Bill upon this day six months?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Yes, but no hon. Members rose to move that Amendment. I have already dealt with the point of Order. It is usual to give notice, but I am afraid that I cannot rule the hon. Member out of order on the point.

Mr. MORRISON: It has been pointed out to hon. Members that there is on the Order Paper a notice so that hon. Members were ready for opposition to the Bill. I was proceeding to show that Clause 18 of the Bill does provide that the works sanctioned by the Bill shall be completed within five years, or, at any rate, if they are not completed by that time then certain other things have to be done. There are other provisions in the Bill—a whole series—where powers have been granted to this company, and they have not exercised those powers, and have come to this House for a second or a third time to secure an extension of the time in which these powers should be exercised. It really is a waste of Parliamentary time, both of the House and of the Committee upstairs, if Parliament has to take up time in passing legislation and then the time is extended later. I am perfectly sure that if this was a Bill of any local authority, excepting perhaps the Middlesex County Council—

Sir H. NIELD: I protest. This is purely provocative and quite outside the Bill, which does not touch the county of Middlesex. The hon. Gentleman opposite is never content unless he is girding at the Middlesex County Council. I beg, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that he may be ordered by you to confine himself to the relevant portions of the Bill.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I have already ordered the hon. Member to do so.

Mr. MORRISON: I am extremely sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was only trying to point out that local authorities if they desired perpetually to postpone work, and the time in which they must—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member must not get into generalities about local authorities; he must confine himself to the Bill.

Mr. BUCHANAN: On a point of Order. Is it not quite in order for an hon. Member to compare the treatment that might be given to a railway company in a Bill of this description with what treatment might be meted out to a local authority in a similar Bill, and to show the difference?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That is always a matter of degree, and it is within the discretion of the Chair as to how far such comparisons may be used.

Mr. MORRISON: That is all I wished to do, to point out how the proposals in this Bill compare with others, and to show in what spirit hon. Members would face similar proposals from another quarter; but I will not, in the circumstances, pursue the point. There are two Clauses in the Bill dealing with the relations between the companies and the two Metropolitan councils—the Marylebone Borough Council and the Westminster City Council. Although dealing with very similar matters, they deal with them in an entirely different way, and it does seem to me that from the point of view of simplicity that they could have been dealt with in a similar way. Further, in some provisions of the Clauses dealing with the City Council of Westminster and the Marylebone Borough Council, there are provisions as to the use of hoardings which seem to me to be dangerously in conflict with the provisions of the London Building Act. As indicating the rather careless way in which, in my judgment, the Bill has been drafted, there is a provision in Clause 23, Subsection (5), which enables the companies actually to use, in fact stipulates, that the motive power for driving the plant shall be electrical, and in another provision there is a stipulation that the lighting of the works shall also be by means of
electricity. The question upon which I should like some assurance would be as to whether they are going to take electricity from the companies at Lots Road station, or whether they will generate electricity for the purpose of motor power for the railway itself. If that is so, it seems to me to be usurping the functions of the Marylebone Borough Council as to a possible electrical supply, for it says that the company shall not itself provide electricity from its works, which are in the ordinary way used for driving the trains and for the purpose of driving the machinery used to light it. I think we ought to have an assurance, in the interest of the electricity supply undertakings, that the electricity will be drawn from the statutory suppliers of electricity who are so authorised by Acts which have been passed by Parliament.
There is a provision in Clause 24, on page 25, which provides that the central company may use capital, properly applicable as capital, any of the monies which they are by any Act relating to the central company authorised to raise and which may not be required for the purposes of those Acts. This is a profoundly important question of Parliamentary control over the capital expenditure of companies. I have a distinct recollection of Acts of the London County Council. If it wishes to use capital for one purpose which Parliament sanctioned for another it has to secure Treasury sanction. The point does arise whether in this case the transfer of capital from one purpose to another purpose ought not similarly to secure Treasury sanction. Again, without in any way getting outside the point of the Act, I do insist that companies ought not to be given greater protection than are local authorities. This is constantly being done. There follows in Clauses 25 to 29 a whole series of extensions of time of such statutory obligations which may be further extended. A considerable number of Clauses in this Bill whereby—

Mr. HANNON: On a point of Order. May I ask why in this elaborate discussion of the Bill, in the moving of its rejection, we have not on the Treasury Bench either the Chairman of Ways and Means—it is very important that he should hear these speeches—or the President of the Board of Trade, who should hear the point raised by the hon. Member.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That is not a point of Order.

Mr. MORRISON: I think hon. Members might appreciate the fact that I have a very difficult task in going into the technical details of this Bill, and I do think it is unfortunate that I should be subjected to these constant interruptions.

Captain HACKING: Is the hon. Gentleman in order in dealing with the question in the way he is? Ought he not simply to confine himself to the details of this Bill.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Gentleman must leave that to me. If the hon. Member does not keep within the terms of his Amendment I shall have occasion to deal with him.

Mr. HANNON: Is it not important that the Chairman of Ways and Means should be present?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That is not a point of Order for the Chair.

Mr. MORRISON: London Members have their rights in connection with a Bill of this kind.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Parliament has decided that Scottish Members have rights, and we think that this Bill should go through unopposed.

Mr. MORRISON: In regard to Bills affecting London, I think we have a right to be heard without being treated in this way. I claim the right of Home Rule for London.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I must point out to the hon. Member that this Bill has had its Second Reading and has been through Committee. We are now discussing the Third Reading, and he is not entitled to go into minute details. The hon. Member must deal with the subject of his Amendment. I really think the hon. Member had better resume his seat

Mr. THURTLE: As a citizen of London I wish to support the Amendment which has been moved by my hon. Friend for the rejection of this Bill. I regret that I have to trespass on the time of the House in discussing this Amendment, but my obligation to my constituents who reside in the great City of London makes it incumbent on me to give the reasons why I think this Bill ought not to be given
a Third Reading this evening. The traffic facilities for London are of immense importance for London citizens, and any extension of tube facilities would, in the ordinary course of events, be welcomed by London citizens. Having particular and definite proposals placed before us in this Bill, I am bound to say after a careful examination of the Clauses and the general intentions of this Measure, I cannot honestly do my duty to my constituents by supporting the Third Reading.
I notice that this Bill, among other things, proposes to effect improvements in connection with the existing Bond Street Station. London is a very important city and Bond Street is a very important part of that city, and I believe it is the fashionable part. I believe that the owners of great wealth congregate around Bond Street at certain parts of the day, and it is essential for the comfort and well being and the general social convenience of those who congregate around Bond Street that there should be a well appointed, well thought out, and well-constructed tube station there. I welcome the general intention of this Bill to improve the existing Bond Street Tube Station. Probably my Scottish friends have never had the privilege of being in the Bond Street Tube Station.

Mr. MACLEAN: Is that a privilege?

Mr. THURTLE: Perhaps "privilege" is the wrong word to use. I do not wish to libel the existing Bond Street Station, but I think those familiar with it will agree—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Simply because the hon. Member sees the words "Bond Street" in the Bill, I cannot allow him to enter into a discussion of the merits or otherwise of that locality. This railway is underneath Bond Street, and the hon. Member's remarks are quite out of order.

Mr. THURTLE: I bow to your ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and I leave Bond Street, with regret. I ask the House to consider with me the general effect these tubes have on the general health of the community—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That is not in order, and if the hon. Member persists
in this way, I shall have to ask him formally to second this Amendment.

Mr. THURTLE: May I call attention to what is not merely a detail, but a very material part of this Bill. I refer to Clause 12. If there is one thing which the people of London suffer from at the present time it is the grave inconvenience of having our broad highways torn up by excavation work—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member cannot deal now with the general question of the condition of the streets of the whole of London. He must restrict himself to this particular proposal. Does the hon. Member second the Amendment?

Mr. THURTLE: I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. MILLS: I have no desire to prolong this discussion, because I feel that the sooner we apply our Parliamentary time to discussing the wisdom or the failure of the provision made for unemployment the better. I approach my opposition to this Bill in the light of that particular problem. I think this Measure should be rejected again and again until such time as this modern jigsaw puzzle of ours called London comes in for the attention of Parliament on a comprehensive basis. The proposed extension contained in the framework of this Bill may be all very well for Westminster and Bond Street, but I represent the southern part of London, and the extension of this particular railway, and the immediate absorption of unskilled labour finds no mention whatever in the framework of this Bill. In the visualisation of a London Traffic Bill and the solution of the problems of London citizens, I submit that the least this Bill ought to have contained would have been a realisation of the tremendous volume of traffic that now obtains from north to south and in a circular form, and, consequently, if we are to give sanction at all to any extension of the underground railways of this great city, it should be in such a way that the outer rings of London, connecting Barking on the north with Erith, Dartford, Crayford, Eltham and Sidcup, going up to the other dead end at New Cross—

Mr. HANNON: On a point of Order. May I respectfully ask whether New Cross and Sidcup have anything whatever to do with the scope of this Bill?

Mr. MILLS: You are well aware, Sir, of the proposed extensions that are in this Bill, and that in this respect the right of a Member to object to the limitation of extensions is something that ought to be articulated in this House. If the hon. Gentleman were condemned for his sins to live on the lines known as the Southern Railway, if he had to put up with the limitations—

Captain HACKING: On a point of Order. Is it in order for an hon. Member to refer to other hon. Members as "sinners"?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member is apparently trying to refer to everything that this Bill does not contain. We should have no limit to the discussion if that were in order. He must restrict himself to the Bill.

Mr. MILLS: If you will allow me to make my protest as general as possible, we have had Parliamentary time taken up with the London Traffic Bill, which has gone before a Committee and is now coming back again. Here we have London with about five bridges over the Thames and two or three tunnels, while the City of Paris has 26 bridges over the Seine to our half-dozen tunnels.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I hope that my colleagues on this side of the House will give this Bill its Third Reading and allow it to pass. I have listened to three speeches in opposition to the Bill, and not one of them has shown that the Bill will do anything to militate against the carrying on of the improvement of London. Further, it is going to do something in the way of giving most useful work, and the quicker we can get on in that direction the better it will be for all concerned. I think that the more speedily we can get the Third Reading of this Bill the better, and I hope my colleagues will allow it to go through.

Mr. HANNON: May I intervene for just a moment? I am authorised to say that as soon as this Bill gets its Third Reading the works comprehended in the Bill will be proceeded with with as little delay as possible.

9.0 P.M.

Mr. SHORT: I think it would be unfortunate if it went forth that all of us on these benches took the same view as those who have spoken in opposition to this Bill. The hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Mills) said that he would not delay the House, because he thought it would be fitting if we addressed ourselves to the problem of unemployment. In that I think there will be general agreement, but when he asks that this Bill shall be rejected, I would remind him that it is a Bill which provides work by the construction of subways and other works under the auspices of the Central London Railway. It is true that that work is being provided by private enterprise, and I have expressed my opinions on more than one occasion upon that issue, but this Bill is introduced for that specific purpose, and my hon. Friends ask that it should be rejected. I think we ought to hesitate before we reject it in that manner. I do not know what is the total sum of money involved. I have inquired, but have been unable to obtain any information, and I think it would be useful if the promoters of a Bill of this character had supplied us with something in the nature of a White Paper on the matter. I have heard no good reason up to the present which would justify me in opposing the Bill. The speech of the hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison), who is not now in the House, would certainly appear likely to lead the House to misunderstand some of the provisions of this Bill. He led me to believe that there was nothing in the Bill which protected the interests of municipal authorities, that it was possible for this company to do this, that and the other, and that, while it would have to give compensation or do something for a private individual, there was nothing here to protect the rights of municipal authorities. I regret that the hon. Member is not now in the House, for I venture to say that that is entirely foreign to the provisions of the Bill. I do not think any good purpose is served by trying to create misunderstanding on matters of such vital importance as this. I find in the Bill page after page protecting the rights of the municipal authorities concerned in regard to the disturbance of roads and
other matters of that kind. It says, for instance:
The Central Company shall not alter or in any way interfere with any refuge, sewer, drain pipe, lamp, column, or other property vested in the City Council without the previous consent in writing of the City Council which shall not be unreasonably withheld.
Then there are two or three other pages devoted entirely, I believe, to the rights of the City of Westminster, within whose province this work is to be done. On page 12 we find this:
The Central Company shall repay the City Council all reasonable expenses incurred by the City Council in executing any necessary alterations or reconstructions of any roadways"—
and so on. Again:
The Central Company shall not under the powers of this Act enter upon or open up any part of the surface of any street in the City … The Central Company shall not deposit any subsoil or materials anywhere within the City.… It shall not be lawful for the Central Company to remove any soil or material from under any road.… The Central Company shall make full compensation to the City Council for any subsidence of, or damage to, any road or footway, sewer, drain or other work vested in or under the jurisdiction or control of the City Council.…
My hon. Friend the Member for South Hackney would have us believe that no compensation is provided in the Bill.

Captain HACKING: On a point of Order. As the speech of the hon. Member for South Hackney was out of order, is it in order to reply to it?

Mr. MORRISON: Is it accepted that the whole of my speech was ruled out of order?

Mr. THURTLE: Is not the hon. and gallant Gentleman's suggestion a reflection upon your ruling?

Mr. SHORT: I rose quite legitimately for the purpose of meeting the point raised by my hon. Friend. He was speaking in a way that appeared to me, I do not say intentionally, to lead to some misunderstanding, or possibly to mislead the House.

Mr. POTTS: Is it right to attempt to lead the House to believe that compensation for subsidence will be given with a limitation of two years? Subsidence can take place after two years, and even after
20 or 30 years, and yet they get no compensation.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That is not a point of Order.

Mr. SHORT: We must be guided by the terms of the Bill. If my hon. Friend can make any more of this than I can, if he can read something in it—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member must address the Chair, and not invite interruptions.

Mr. SHORT: I was only desirous of making it perfectly clear to my hon. Friend that these words carry with them what I say.

Mr. HANNON: Is this not really deliberate waste of time?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I am watching the hon. Member very carefully, and I think if he does not keep to the point, he had better not continue.

Mr. SHORT: I am endeavouring to confine myself to the terms and provisions of the Bill. Seeing that the hon. Member for Moseley (Mr. Hannon) has interfered, may I remind him that, up to now, no one has said a word in support of the Bill, despite the challenge which has come from my hon. Friend, to whom I am replying.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member is again not addressing the Chair. He must address the Chair.

Mr. SHORT: The point I have been attempting to make by reading extracts from the Bill is that there is ample provision for the protection of local authorities. I find the promoters of the Bill are not satisfied with protecting the City of Westminster, but they are also protecting the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Metropolitan Borough of St. Marylebone. I have had experience of the work of a municipal council which governs the lives of half a million people, and I know something of the difficulties that arise from the spasmodic opening up of streets and interference with the surfaces of roads. I have always felt that it was right and proper that there should be some protection for municipalities. Here, as far as I know, we get it. It is set out very clearly in the Bill. Therefore the arguments which have been advanced by the hon. Member for South Hackney leave me cold. Every provision is made apparently for the protection of local authorities, including compensation.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member has repeated the same argument so often, that I think he had better resume his seat.

Mr. HAYDAY: I am rather concerned over one of the Clauses of the Bill upon which one would like a little information or explanation, and that is the Clause relating to the period allowed within which to perform the works coming under Part 2 of the Bill, that is the construction of subways and general work. Clause 18 says:
If the subways and works by this part of this Act authorised be not completed within five years from the passing of this Act, on the expiration of that period the powers by this Act granted to the Central Company for making and completing subways and works, or otherwise in relation thereto, shall cease except as to so much thereof as is then completed.
One is anxious that the whole of this work, for which powers are being sought, should be carried out at the earliest possible moment in order to relieve the large numbers who at the moment are unemployed. It is possible for certain of this work to remain unfinished at the expiration of five years, and such portion as may be a key to the usefulness of that already completed. That already completed will be quite all right under the powers of the Bill, but there is no provision for an extension of the period to complete that which may become a very necessary unit of the work to give us the whole system complete. In the event of any unascertained obstacle being found during the course of the work, and the work not being completed within the period of five years, it would be to my mind very harsh if this obstacle, over which the contractors and even the Central Railway authority itself had no control, could not be overcome within the five years, the powers then lapsed. I do not know whether there is any other general provision outside that Clause, but if there is not, it certainly appears to me to be too tight and too abrupt. I think hon. Members will follow what I have in my mind. [HON. MEMBERS: "We do not!"] Then I will repeat it for the hon. Members' information.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member must address the Chair and must not repeat anything to any Hon. Member.

Mr. HANNON: May I again respectfully suggest, on a point of Order, to
one of the Lords of the Treasury, now on the Front Bench, that the Chairman of Ways and Means ought to be invited to be present during this discussion?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That is not a point of Order.

Mr. HAYDAY: I am the last to transgress the rules of this House. I did think that some hon. Member who might have discussed this Clause when the Bill was being drafted might be able to give the information for which I was asking. As an old Public Works man, I know full well that in an undertaking such as that suggested by this Bill unforeseen obstacles arise, which interfere with the carrying out of the contract, particularly in connection with subways. Subways may be too deep or too shallow. There may be within the period of five years some obstacle which cannot be overcome within the five years period. If it cannot be so overcome, then, suddenly, at the end of the five years the power ceases, without any provision being made for representation such as would give an extension of time. If the purpose of the Bill—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I have heard the hon. Member use the same argument at least three or four times, and I must ask him to resume his seat.

Mr. T. JOHNSTON: I trust that the experience through which the House is going to-night will convince hon. Members opposite of the necessity for some kind of devolution. Here we have the spectacle of a great Debate on unemployment, the most vital and necessary subject which confronts this House, being interrupted for more than an hour by this discussion on a private Bill.

Mr. THURTLE: Is the hon. Member in order in discussing unemployment upon this particular Measure?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member had better confine himself to this Bill.

Mr. JOHNSTON: Interrupted for an hour, as it has been by discussion upon this Measure.

Mr. HAYDAY: An important Measure.

Mr. JOHNSTON: It seems to me to be a misuse, I put it no higher, of Parliamentary time.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member is himself taking up the time of the House.

Mr. JOHNSTON: I want to enter my most respectful protest.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I should not have intervened had it appeared to me that this Bill was being discussed seriously. I am not saying by which side, nor am I referring to any particular Member.

Mr. HAYDAY: This is an important Bill.

Mr. JOHNSTON: If it were an important Bill hon. Members should not be discussing it in a spirit of levity, organised outside this House. I want to utter on behalf of some hon. Members my most respectful protest against the time of this House being wasted as it has been during the last hour.

Mr. VIANT: It is exceedingly unfortunate that any steps should be taken to prevent this discussion. It is vital for those people who live in the suburbs of London, and who have to come into the centre of London each day. As a new Member of this House, I want to avail myself of this opportunity of drawing attention to what I consider to be a very wrong principle which is embodied in the Bill. I refer to the provision in Clause 5 with respect to the distinction made between public property and private property in connection with the payment of compensation. It is provided that where certain soil is taken, compensation is to be paid for such soil where it belongs to a private person, but in respect of soil which is the property of the ratepayers no compensation is to be paid. I express my strong objection to that principle.
I do not want it to be assumed that I am desirous of objecting to or offering obstruction to any private Bill that is likely to contribute towards mitigating the problem of unemployment, but this principle is one against which I must protest, in that it discriminates between public and private property. Againt that principle I shall object every time and all the time that I have the opportunity. I expect that this soil, when it is removed, will be dumped into the poor areas. Provision ought to have been made and some promise given that this soil would be taken away from those
areas. We are offering this objection, not because we are desirous of obstructing the Bill, but in the hope that these points may be borne in mind when Committees subsequently are considering Bills of a similar character. In Clause 8, permission has to be given for the dismemberment of property. One might walk through the city to-day and be struck by the ghastly spectacle of property that has been dismembered. No proper provision has been made for that property being put into such a condition as to appear even respectable to the public eye. Such conditions do not tend to improve the appearance and the general outlay of the city.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now dealing with generalities which could be applied to half a dozen different Bills. That is not in order. This is a Motion for the rejection of the Bill, and he must stick to that.

Mr. H. MORRISON: With great respect, I understood that I was ruled out of order for sticking to the details of the Bill.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member knows why he was ruled out of order. It was not for the reason that he has given.

Mr. VIANT: I have every desire to obey your ruling. At the same time, being desirous of supporting the rejection of the Bill, I am endeavouring to offer good reasons for my objection. I considered that the two points I had already raised were of vast importance in that respect. In view of the fact that many of the points I have to make in connection with the Bill will deal with a similar objection, and as you have ruled me out on these two points, I think it advisable not to pursue the others.

Question, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

Hastings Corporation Bill [Lords] (by Order),

Read a Second time, and committed.

London, Midland, and Scottish Railway (Superannuation Fund) Bill (by Order),

Second Reading deferred till Monday next (26th May), at a Quarter-past Eight o'clock.

SUPPLY.

Again considered in Committee.

[Mr. ENTWISTLE in the Chair.]

Postponed Proceeding resumed on Question proposed on Consideration of Question,
That a sum, not exceeding £8,560,339, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1925, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Labour and Subordinate Departments, including the Contributions to the Unemployment Fund, and to Special Schemes, and Payments to Associations and Local Education Authorities for administration under the Unemployment Insurance Acts; Expenditure in connection with the Training of Demobilised Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers and Men, and Nurses; Grants for Resettlement in Civil Life; and the Expenses of the Industrial Court; also Expenses in connection with the International Labour Organisation (League of Nations), including a Grant-in-Aid.

Question again proposed, "That Item A (1)—(Salaries, Wages and Allowances)—be reduced by £100."

Miss BONDFIELD: I have to deal with one or two points in detail in connection with the general comments, and I should like to deal further with the question of electricity. I think it is rather important that, in a case of this kind, the opportunity should be utilised to the fullest possible extent for the purpose of giving such information to the country as is in our possession, and I should like, with the consent of the Committee, to give in detail some of the developments which have taken place in connection with this electricity programme. The remarkable growth of the industry under the Commissioners since 1919 is indicated by the following figures. The capital invested in 1919 in the electricity supply undertakings was approximately £99,447,384; at the end of 1922 the amount invested was £144,299,060, an increase of no less than 43 per cent. The generating plant installed had a capacity of 2,143,659 kilowatts up to 31st March, 1923. The Commissioners sanctioned new generating plant to the extent of 1,279,087 kilowatts, an increase in three years of 60 per cent. The number of units generated was 3,694,000,000; in 1922–23 the number had reached 4,572,000,000, an increase of 24 per cent. The investigations of the Commissioners showed that there is great
scope for the further development and use of electricity. Such developments include a considerable expansion of railway electrification and the possibility of supplying collieries, textile mills and other industries.
The point that I want to drive home is that the Government have considered all these developments in connection with electricity, and they are perfectly satisfied that, while it is gratifying that there has been this development, it is by no means keeping pace with the development of electricity in other countries, and that there is still room for a united effort thoroughly to electrify this country. To use a phrase of a right hon. Gentleman on this side of the Committee, he would like to electrify the Government. I can assure him that the desire of the Government to electrify the country is even more intense, and is part of the plan that the Government is pursuing. It is not a party question. This question is one of vital concern to the efficiency and development of out-industries as a whole, and it is necessary to visualise, not merely the present progress, gratifying as it may seem in relation to what we had in 1919. I want to pay a tribute to the Electricity Commissioners. I think we will all agree, those of us who have knowledge of the details of the work, that they have done magnificently. But I want to repeat that this is a matter in which the importance of electrical power has to be popularised, and it is in that direction that I venture to elaborate my remarks. It is not sufficient even to continue to develop electrical plant unless, at the same time, we can develop the number of users of the plant, and make it an economic proposition. Speaking from the point of view of the domestic use of electricity, I cannot conceive of any development in our country that is going to do more for the life and health of our people than the electrification of this country. It moans the abolition of the grime and misery of our great industrial towns, and it means life itself to large masses of men, women and children.
There is one other point also, and that is the question, referred to by one or two hon. Members, of the position of ex-service men in relation to the building trades. There have been trained for building work 8,000 disabled ex-service men, of whom 75 per cent. are employed
in the building trades. I want to submit to the Committee that the building trade is carrying 75 per cent. of the 8,000 disabled ex-service men, and it is a big blow for that trade to bear in view of the fact that they have absorbed them that large numbers of building trade labourers are out of work. Figures were quoted to-night as to the number of builders' labourers still registered in the Labour Exchanges as unemployed. We all know the case with regard to the bricklayers, but I submit that when we are asked to tell the building trades that they must absorb this, that and the other we have to remember that this is a question of the industry itself as a whole stating that it cannot be responsible for the quality of its work until those who are engaged in it are fully trained under a proper apprenticeship system. They further state that unless these people are taken at an age before their muscular development concludes it is almost impossible for them to become expert workers. [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite who know nothing about the technical details of the work and know nothing about muscular development find it very easy to laugh, but exactly the same thing applies to various branches of trades.
You cannot get men whose muscles are set, and who have gone into the carpentry trade to be trained to be able to keep pace with the men who began to use planes before their muscles were set. Numbers of ex-service men whose muscles were set were too old at the time when they started training for what is a very skilled process, and were unable to maintain it because they could not endure the strain on a particular set of muscles. They were entirely unaccustomed to it. There are at present still in training at the building trades centre under the Ministry 160 men, and there are completing training with employers 540 men. Those figures have to be added to the 8,000. While it is clear that the number of applications for training have become less that is undoubtedly a matter for sincere congratulation. I am not satisfied, and nobody is satisfied, that there should be any ex-service men not yet absorbed, but local propaganda and the efforts of the King's Roll Committees seem to me to be the satisfactory way of securing the absorption of these ex-service men.
I agree with the hon. Member for Bethnal Green that the problem of continuous employment is one of the most difficult and that it has to be considered after a much closer analysis of the figures of labour. I am inclined from observation to think—and here I speak with all diffidence because there are no statistics—that we shall find on analysis that a large number of men who cannot get employment and who have been continuously unemployed for two or three or four years are men who are getting elderly in their trades. This presents us with another problem altogether—by what steps we can endeavour to remove at both ends of the labour scale, to keep young people from coming in, and to take off the older people at an earlier age, because the employer cannot unreasonably be expected to maintain a large proportion of the old people, and while the young people must come into the trade and it is necessary that the young people should learn their trades, yet the bulk of the work of the world ought to be placed on the shoulders of the able bodied and not on those of the young or the old. Therefore in so far as the figures for unemployment are swollen by elderly men that is a problem to which the Government is turning its attention from the standpoint of seeing if anything can be done out of national resources to withdraw them at an earlier age from the labour market.
On the subject of employment exchanges, I accept the criticism which has been made with regard to the inefficiency of the buildings, particularly in the London area, where the difficulty of obtaining proper sites has been very great. But I suggest that we are faced with many years of arrears in our building programe. Year after year estimates have been put in for structural alteration, but the money has never been spent, and we find that the building programme is overdue by four or five years. We have got an allocation of £150,000 for adjusting and improving the employment exchanges, all of which it is intended to spend and some of which has already been spent on actual operations in improving the employment exchanges. I deplore that there are so many inadequate employment exchanges. The thing cannot be put right in a week or a fortnight. It takes time, but the money has been allocated to the exchanges, and
is being spent, and the work is proceeding as rapidly as possible.
There were other points used which depend on statistics. Here again I would direct attention to the fact that owing to, in my opinion, wrong views of economy certain forms of statistics which were very valuable records were dropped, and because these statistics were not kept up to date the Government were without necessary information. We have made a beginning in restoring these vital statistics, without which there are many things with which we cannot definitely proceed. I am glad that many speakers have recognised the joint responsibility for the condition of affairs which exist to-day. I claim for the Government that, not only have they fulfilled the pledge that the Prime Minister gave on taking office, but they have more than fulfilled it. They have fulfilled the pledge of continuing the work consistently and honestly whatever they found in progress, without any reduction of attempt to detract from the credit of those who started the schemes, and they have carried them on because they were schemes moving in the right direction.
We have carried on schemes with regard to electrical undertakings, roads and other matters which have been mentioned, and we have assisted materially in connection with trade facilities and in other ways in the development of trade. The figures in regard to Russian trade show promising development as the result of the changed situation. In 1913 the Russian imports were £6,633,000 and the exports were £2,610,000. In 1923, before the de facto recognition of the Russian Government, the imports were £900,000 and the exports were £647,000. In 1924 the imports had risen to £2,263,000 and the exports were £308,000. These figures represent the value of merchandise, and are not adjusted to show the change in values. I have now dealt with most of the points that have been raised, and I hope that the Committee will give us the Vote to-night, believing that the Government has quite honestly and earnestly carried out the pledges made by the Prime Minister in taking office in the circumstances in which he found himself.

Mr. HANNON: I am sure that the Committee will have fully enjoyed the delightful speech which we have just had
from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, and if occasionally her intimate knowledge of industry was a little wide of her enthusiasm, I am sure that the Committee will forgive her, but when she accuses Members on this side of the Committee of not having any knowledge of industrial organisation, I am afraid—

Miss BONDFIELD: I did not say that. What I said was knowledge of a particular industrial process of the people.

Mr. HANNON: Why deny us a little knowledge of a particular industrial process? I do not see why the hon. Member and her colleagues should have a monopoly of the knowledge of these particular processes. I want to put to the Minister of Labour, whose thunderous eloquence this afternoon will, no doubt, be read through the country to-morrow with mixed feelings by thousands of working people—I want to put one or two questions to him. [Laughter.] If hon. Gentlemen opposite who laugh can derive any satisfaction from the speech of the Minister on unemployment this afternoon, I make them a present of it. I do not want to pursue that subject now, because the Minister of Labour has had a full dose of criticism, and when he faces his own constituents in Lancashire he probably will have a little difficulty in satisfying them that he has achieved the substantial progress which he tried to infuse into his speech this afternoon. What has he really done to promote the development of electricity supply and the electrification of railways, upon which he and the Parliamentary Secretary laid so much stress? During the last 18 months a series of schemes, carefully considered, has been submitted to successive Governments. My right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Camberwell (Dr. Macnamara) knows that even in his day seriously considered schemes for the development of railway electrification came before him, and he will agree, as succeeding Ministers of Labour and Prime Ministers agree, that that is one of the most appropriate means of employing skilled labour.
Very early in the career of the present Minister of Labour questions were put to him on the subject, and on the schemes that had been before his predecessors. He was asked to take the obvious step, responsible as he was and is, for improving
the conditions of employment in this country, by bringing together the chairmen and general managers of the railways, and consulting with them as to the means by which the schemes that had been submitted could be put into operation. I now ask the right hon. Gentleman whether any progress has been made in the continuance of these friendly consultations, tending to the development of railway electrification? Has he accomplished anything, for example, in getting the Southern Railway to recognise the immense advantage of electrification from the point of view of public convenience, from the point of view of the earning power of the railway itself, and from the point of view of providing a large volume of employment? In the case of the London and North Eastern Railway, schemes were in progress on the old Great Eastern in the time of his predecessor, has he done anything to encourage the company to expedite the electrification of the suburban lines? The Minister knows that there is a traffic problem in the neighbourhood of London which cries aloud for solution, apart altogether from the question of unemployment. He would have the entire sympathy of the public by giving every possible facility to the railway companies to proceed with the least possible delay with the development of these important schemes. He knows that during the past few years the most competent engineers in Europe and America have been consulted on the advisability of these schemes, and in every case the reports have shown that in a reasonable period of time the propositions submitted to the Government would be revenue-earning.
I would also ask whether the Minister has considered the possibility of encouraging the extension of credits to some of the new European communities which are struggling to re-establish themselves, particularly those which have balanced their Budgets and stabilised their currencies, and are making substantial economic progress. Take, for example, the three Baltic States. In those States a great effort is being made to put the whole economic and social system upon sound foundations. They are entirely friendly to this country, and they are anxious to cultivate trade with this country, but difficulties exist owing to the necessity of allowing a
somewhat prolonged credit. It would be a distinct advantage to those who desire to sell manufactured goods to these new communities if the right hon. Gentleman, in consultation with his colleagues at the Treasury, would consider whether slightly more generous terms of credit could be devised under the Export Credits scheme, in the direction of the extension of this trade. Again, in the case of a country like Yugo-Slavia, with its immense national resources, a balanced Budget and substantial progress in every direction, in spite of many internal political difficulties—unhappily there is something like a Labour party in that country, too—has the right hon. Gentleman considered how far, in conjunction with his colleagues, he can help that country to obtain extended credits and greater purchasing power for our manufactured goods?
I want the right hon. Gentleman also to take into sympathetic consideration a project of profound importance to us in the Midlands. He has had it before him. I refer to the project for improving canal navigation between Worcester and Birmingham. Birmingham stands to-day, in the front rank of the intelligence of the whole world. I venture to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that if he would have a competent judgment upon any question whatever, I would commend him at once to Birmingham. In Birmingham we are anxious to improve our communication with the sea. The right hon. Gentleman has had before him already proposals for the enlargement of our canal navigation. By means of a comparatively small expenditure upon the widening of the canal, without entering upon the huge project contemplated by the Royal Commission which reported upon canal development in that part of the country, the Government could considerably improve the transport facilities in the Midlands, and I hope, when the right hon. Gentleman has had an opportunity of considering more fully the details of the scheme, he will give it his sympathetic consideration.
At the instance of hon. Gentlemen opposite we have heard lately a lot about Russia. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not profoundly more important for the Government to concentrate upon the development of Empire trade, closer commercial relations
with our own people, and the extension of better economic arrangements under our own flag, than to waste so much time and so much thought upon Russia, which holds out no possibility at present of giving employment to anyone in this country? Quite recently I have been on the Russian frontier. I have had the advantage of meeting a good many persons engaged in carrying on a comparatively small trade with Russia, and, within the limits of barter, they are doing comparatively well. But every one of these men whom I met at Warsaw, Berlin and Vienna told me that, in the present collapsed condition of the whole structure of Russia, it was impossible to expect a volume of trade worth consideration for 10 years to come. Why should we neglect the vast opportunities within our Empire, in every State under the Crown, and why should we not concentrate upon these with all the vigour and enthusiasm which Members of the Government have frequently shown upon questions affecting Russia? It is much more important to devote such energy to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the Crown Colonies, than continually to keep harping upon Russia, which is sterile from the point of view of giving us any trade. I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman one or two questions with regard to the administration of unemployment insurance benefit, if I am in order.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Mr. Foot): It would not be in order on this Vote

10.0 P.M.

Mr. HANNON: I would like to say that in this country to-day, whatever Government is in office it will have the fullest sympathy of all classes of the community for the development of measures to relieve unemployment. Speeches such as the right hon. Gentleman made this afternoon, and the comparison between January and May of last year and January and May of this year, will not find employment for people in this country. What the right hon. Gentleman must tell this House, if he is to give satisfaction, is that in the great cities of this country he is, week by week, by the promotion of revenue-earning schemes opening up opportunities for the employment of people who are now walking the streets, and receiving unemployment insurance
benefit. The right hon. Gentleman has been an intimate student of economics for a great many years. He has examined the European problem, I understand, in all its aspects, and he might give a little thought to the home problem. More important than making speeches, from the point of view of the masses of workpeople to-day in Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, is that there should be a scheme in actual operation offering opportunities of employment.
I am quite sure that the whole trend of this discussion will leave the impression upon the mind of the country that the present administration, from the point of view of finding employment for the people, is a gigantic failure. The whole thing has been a make-believe from the day they came into office. During the Election they went into every part of the country, and promised everything from the blue-sky downwards. I spoke in a great many constituencies during the Election, and everywhere one went one was faced by the generous conception which the ordinary Labour candidate had of the wonders he could accomplish when his party came into office. That is a kind of deception upon the electorate for which the party in office will have to pay very shortly. They perambulate this country, and pretend to provide food for the people, who find afterwards that it is a stone. I am quite sure there has never been an administration founded upon such a rotten foundation, having regard to its own electoral programme, than the Government now in office in this country.
We have had examples in the past of promises made by leaders of parties and individual candidates, but take the Manifesto of the party in office, issued before the General Election, the deliberately considered collection of their own views of what ought to be done for the working classes of this country, and examine how much of that they have really tried to accomplish. I would ask my hon. Friends who come from the Clyde, and for whose honesty I have the greatest possible respect, because they really infuse into this House, when they speak, an atmosphere of reality—I would ask any member of that compact and highly intellectual little group, misdirected as they are, to give their opinion of the programme of the Government. It would be one of the most delightful pieces of criticism one could
study. I would look forward with intense joy if I could see next week, in "Forward," a clearly expressed and pungent criticism of my hon. Friend opposite when he comes to deal with this Debate. The time has come to face this problem with earnestness and sincerity. You are not going to put the people of this country into jobs by talk. It is because the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have deplorably failed to carry out their promises, that the whole feeling of the people will rise against them when they next appeal to the country.

Mr. SHAW: I rise to enter into no political discussion. The only thing in the way of political discussion I am going to say is, it is a remarkable fact that, with all these brilliant ideas, the hon. Gentleman's party did not realise the possibilities of the situation. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hannon) has raised points of very great importance and I am going to try to give him an answer. Whatever party one belongs to, there are certain things that ought to be common to us all. I do believe that there are great possibilities not only of employment, but of increase of efficiency, in the railways. I have said it before, and I say it now. It is possible to make great improvements, and negotiations are proceeding to that end. The hon. Member has specifically mentioned the Southern Railway. Certain developments have taken place there, and estimates show there are five new steamers in hand. It is estimated that £5,500,000 will be spent on electrification, £2,500,000 of which ought to be spent this year. I agree with every word he said as to the necessity of this work being done, and the Government will try to help him and his friends to get it accomplished. I think everyone who has studied the circumstances knows that a reduction in certain costs is eminently necessary if the industry of this country, particularly the export industry, is to be successful. Men of good will in all parties can help towards that end. The hon. Gentleman will find no more willing helper for his ideas than, if I may say so, the Minister of Labour. With what he says about the new States I find myself also in cordial agreement. The Government will be well advised to take into account what he has said, and I am sure they will use their powers as wisely as they can to help commercial men who
wish to open up arrangements and negotiations for business with these countries, particularly because one of the best ways to make friends with the people is to enter into commercial contact with them in the exchange of goods. I do not think hon. Members will find the Government lacking in any way in that respect.

Mr. D. HERBERT: May I take it that those words apply to the British Dominions overseas?

Mr. SHAW: If the hon. Gentleman will wait a moment, he will find I am going to deal with that subject, as I dealt with it this afternoon. With regard to the canal from Birmingham to Worcester, I can give a definite undertaking that if a scheme is presented, if a private Bill is sought, there will be no difficulty in getting assistance under the Trade Facilities Act for that scheme. Then with regard to Russia and our Empire, the present Government are in favour of developing trade both with Russia and with our Empire, as far as it is possible to develop both; and, indeed, with every other country in the world. There may be differences of opinion on fiscal matters, but there is no difference of opinion at all as to the necessity of developing our Empire to the fullest possible extent. I have risen simply to answer the definite questions that have been put.

Mr. COMYNS-CARR: I have listened with interest to the explanations of the Minister of Labour of the performances of the Government with regard to the promises which were put before the country by their party at the last Election. The schemes have not emerged from the hat, but, at all events, we have heard all there is to be said, I should imagine, at this stage, at all events, with regard to them. I notice with interest—possibly there is some connection between the two subjects—that only two evenings ago a Second Reading was given after 11 o'clock to a Bill which had previously received some opposition from at least one hon. Member above the Gangway. This opposition was withdrawn. It was a Bill for the prohibition of the coursing of rabbits, which are brought in captivity to the place of entertainment. I cannot help thinking it was intended for the protection of the rabbits which were to emerge from the hat of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister
of Labour. Certainly, every endeavour has been made this afternoon to prevent them being unduly coursed in this House. I myself do not complain so much of the meagreness of the schemes which the Government have been able to explain to us that they propose to take up, as of the expectations which were raised in regard to those schemes before the Government took office. I cannot help thinking myself there must be many hon. Members sitting behind the Front Government Bench who are, in their hearts, bitterly disillusioned and disappointed. There are many hon. Members sitting on those benches who really believed in those expectations and who, in their turn, led the electors who supported them to believe in them. I cannot help thinking it is to those sincere supporters of the Labour Government that the proceedings of this afternoon must have given such bitter disappointment and disillusion.
It seems almost lacking in sportsmanship to pursue unduly the proposals which have been put forward for the development of schemes for giving work to the unemployed. I myself take the view that it is far better to pursue a policy which will liberate the energies of the people of this country to develop schemes for themselves, than for the Government to bring forward and pursue those schemes. I confess to having very little confidence in the ability of this Government, or indeed of the machinery of government, to initiate and carry out schemes of the character which ought to be initiated and carried out under such circumstances as we have been passing through during the past two years. If it were not for some of the conditions which prevail in this country, which, in my opinion, unduly hamper and restrict the development of public works of the kind that we have in mind, those schemes would be carried out by the people of this country themselves, without the necessity for the right hon. Gentleman searching for rabbits in his hat. My firm belief is, that we are prevented at the present time by the conditions prevailing in this country with regard to land tenure and the system of rating and taxation, which hamper the development of our national resources. If the Government would pursue more energetically the policy which they, in common with the Liberal party have
advocated, of removing those restrictions, we would find that these developments would take place by the energy of our own people. Looking at these schemes, which have been so much under discussion—railway schemes and canal schemes—we find the results, if they are carried out, almost invariably the same. In the first place, as soon as a vast capital expenditure has been incurred by whoever undertakes the carrying out of a development of that kind, there is imposed on the top of that capital expenditure a huge burden of rates and taxes, the valuation for which is based upon the very expenditure which has been incurred in carrying out the scheme. That is a tax upon production which, at the present level of rating and taxation, is of a prohibitive character. It is prohibitive on a vast scale as applied to railways, canals or electrical developments; it is prohibitive, on a smaller scale, as applied to housing or agricultural development of any kind, large or small.
I do not so much blame the Minister for not producing schemes, as I blame the Government for having taken no steps to relieve industry from the burdens which it now bears. If the Government would pursue the policy of land reform and the reform of rating and taxation to which they are pledged, it would not be necessary for the Minister to come to this House to defend schemes, or the lack of schemes. We should see that development of industry which would relieve our unemployment problem following automatically upon the removal of these shackles, instead of requiring to be stimulated and promoted at the public expense by schemes under the control of the Government. I blame, not so much the inactivity of the Government as regards producing or carrying out schemes, as the fact that they have allowed the public to believe that such schemes were going to be produced. In the constructional industry, the industry of public works, unemployment is above the general average level of unemployment throughout the country. It seems a deplorable thing, apart from the drafting of men into the industry of public works construction who are not suited to it, that you actually have at the present time with all these demands for the development of public works, a level of unemployment in the particular industry
devoted to that purpose higher than the average level of unemployment in the country. I should be sorry to see a Debate on unemployment close without somebody rising to point out this fundamental matter which is at the root of the whole question of development and employment. I do not wish to go into all the details of the argument which are no doubt familiar to the majority of the Committee. To my mind, all these discussions as to whether the Government should promote this or that are to a largo extent beside the point when they do not remove the shackles, which would result in those developments being promoted automatically, if only they would undertake what I believe to be the sound and right policy in this matter.
I most sincerely and firmly condemn the inaction of the Government, because it is in that direction which I have indicated rather than in the particular direction which has been more under discussion during the greater part of the evening. But at the same time I cannot help thinking that it is a deplorable fact that such expectations should have been raised when, as a matter of fact, it now appears, after four months, not merely that the schemes which were talked of are not in operation, but that they cannot even to-day be actually produced. It seems to me that it is no use saying that the Government have not a majority with which to carry the schemes which they would like to carry. The fact that they might or might not carry them does not in the least prevent them from producing them if they exist, and if they have the schemes, and if they are really the schemes which will solve the problem and which were indicated in their election promises, then I think they might at least have the courage to produce them and to invite the House to pass its opinion upon them. I, for one, if they are not produced, shall assume, and I think I shall be bound to assume, and I think the country will assume, that they are not produced, not because they could not be carried, but because they do not exist.

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Webb): I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for East Islington (Mr. Comyns-Carr), who has just sat down, on having introduced a little
variety into this rather scrambling Debate. The hon. and learned Member, by way of a change, blames the Government, not altogether for not having done enough, but for having, as far as I understood, done really too much.

Mr. COMYNS-CARR: Promised too much.

Mr. WEBB: The hon. and learned Member will have an opportunity of hearing what I have to say on that point later on. The hon. and learned Member's point seemed to be that it would be very much better than attempting to employ the unemployed by what are artificial means, to remove the shackles upon industry and set free individual enterprise. I say that that is a variety. The Government are blamed for having attempted, following in the steps of the late Government, to provide employment. We ought, apparently, to have abandoned those attempts to find employment and applied ourselves to removing the shackles on industry.

Mr. COMYNS-CARR: No.

Mr. WEBB: That is what the hon. and learned Member said.

Mr. COMYNS-CARR: I did not say that the Government ought to have abandoned anything which they had done. What I said was that they ought to have done something else, and in addition to anything that they had done.

Mr. WEBB: What I understand the hon. Member means is that the Government, while on the one hand removing the shackles from industry should, on the other hand, again put on those shackles. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no," and Laughter.] It may be quite easy to raise a laugh on that point, but I am endeavouring to follow up the principles enunciated in the Debate, so far as I lay claim to have heard it. What appears to be the charge is that the Minister of Labour, not having done what he had no power to do, and what did not fall within his duty to do, and what neither he or his colleagues could have done in the time, is culpable. I quite realise that I shall be quite unable to turn back upon what I may have said, and use this Debate for the purposes of electioneering. I am endeavouring to the best of my ability to deal, in all seriousness, with what I understand are the points involved. My right
hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has been blamed for not carrying out, for not producing a remedy for unemployment which hon. Members opposite assert to have been promised, and to have been declared in the programme of the party to which he and I belong. Hon. Members opposite have over and over again repeated that, doubtless in all sincerity, that the party to which I belong had a remedy for unemployment. [HON. MEMBERS: "They said they had it!"] Hon. Members opposite themselves have been coming forward with what they declare to be a remedy for unemployment in which they firmly believe, and they have propounded that remedy in the form of a policy of fiscal protection.

Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: The only remedy.

Mr. WEBB: There was a very peculiar psychological result to that policy, in fact, it was a sort of fiscal thrill. The newspapers supporting hon. Members opposite immediately saw a rival remedy, and they insisted in believing that the Labour party had a remedy of the same order, and they sought for it and declared that we had it. They said that our remedy was the Capital Levy. Hon. Members opposite brought forward a policy in the nature of Protection, and the newspapers insisted upon finding a remedy of a parallel nature in the Labour programme, and they pitched upon the Capital Levy. That is in the Labour party programme, but I deny that it was ever put forward as a remedy for unemployment.
What we stated was that there was no remedy for unemployment under the existing system, and that the only remedy was a radical transformation of the industrial system by what hon. Members opposite have called Socialism. As a matter of fact, what the Labour party recommended was that there should be this transformation of the industrial system, and that in no other way could you remedy effectually unemployment in this country. Other suggestions were put forward for the immediate relief of unemployment, and now we are being denounced for not putting our full programme into operation. We have only been in office 16 weeks, and we are being held up to opprobrium for having deceived the electors and having taken our salary under false pretences.
I do not know whether hon. Members can keep their countenances when they denounce us for not putting these remedies into operation in the course of 16 weeks. But we are told that we held out expectations. While, however, these remedies might be put into operation with a majority—[HON. MEMBERS: "Go and get it!"]—we never said that we could do it while we were in a minority. If hon. Members suggest that any Member of the Labour party said that he was going to carry out all this programme, or any part of it, with a minority, at any rate, we did not, and we took office in a minority knowing that, obviously, we could not carry out these things. What was our duty? Our duty was to deal with the immediate problems before us, to do what we could, week by week, under the conditions. That was our duty, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has been doing that, and doing it successfully. He has not turned aside to pursue things which could not be done in 16 weeks, and which would require legislation, which cannot even be initiated now. We are accused because we proceeded in this way, but really all this kind of criticism recoils on those who make it. [Interruption.]

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: On a point of Order. I really cannot hear what the right hon. Gentleman is saying.

Mr. WEBB: May I observe that it is not the duty of a Member, in speaking, to attempt to speak against the band? I do not propose to continue further.

Mr. NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN: The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down described this as a "scrambling Debate." I do not think that any more accurate description than that could be applied to the speech which he has just delivered. He has been scrambling from one point to another, following the example of those who have preceded him, and endeavouring to find, at the last moment, some explanation of that unfortunate sentence in the Labour party's Manifesto which claimed that they, and they alone, had a positive remedy for unemployment. [Interruption.]

Viscount CURZON: Now sing "The Red Flag!" [HON. MEMBERS: "You could not!"]

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The right hon. Gentleman has made it an excuse for having done nothing whatsoever to remedy unemployment, that the positive remedy which his party had in mind was Socialisation—that is, as I understand, the nationalisation of the means of production and distribution. [HON. MEMBERS: "And exchange!"] The memories of hon. Gentlemen opposite are so short that they have already forgotten what were the actual words of their manifesto. I happen, for greater convenience and accuracy, to have made a copy of those words, which I will proceed to read to the right hon. Gentleman, in order that I may refresh his memory, and show him what is the fact, that in the Labour party's manifesto nothing of the kind was claimed at all. The positive remedy is a strictly limited programme of development of various national resources—not nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange. After saying that the Labour party had this positive remedy it went on
The Labour programme of national work includes the establishment of a national system of electrical power supply.
I call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that that is the only instance of the use of the word "national."

Mr. WEBB: The programme of work, hot the remedy. There are two statements. One is the remedy and then there is the programme of work.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The right hon. Gentleman really cannot fool the people twice that way. If Socialisation was the remedy why was it not in the manifesto? If the programme of work was intended to be carried out why does he not carry it out? Let me go on. After the electrical power supply, "The development of transport by road, rail and canal"—the word "national" is not mentioned—"the improvement of national resources by land drainage, reclamation, afforestation, town planning"—a fine remedy that for unemployment—"and housing schemes." Let me point out to the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Lady, both of whom claimed that this programme could only be carried out over a long period of years, that the next sentence in the manifesto was as follows:
These not only provide a remedy for present distress"—
But they are not providing a remedy for the present distress. Even the Minister of Labour, who was anxious for electioneering purposes to claim for his Government the reduction of unemployment which has taken place since his Government came into office, although he knows as well as I do that he cannot claim credit for a single man put in employment, can only claim a figure of reduction in the few months that he has been in office which was considerably less than the corresponding figure for last year. They cannot have it all ways. We have had three different lines of defence. First of all comes along the Minister of Labour and says, "We have done the work. We have put men into employment." [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Then how do you reconcile that with the leading article in the "Daily Herald" this morning, with its headline:
Why the Labour party cannot provide work for the workless.
Then comes along the Noble Lady opposite. [Interruption.] The uniforms have come already, and I daresay the peerages will not be very long. She says, "It is a very difficult thing to work out schemes for the relief of unemployment. They take a long time. There are a great many difficulties to be encountered All sorts of people have to be communicated with." Then she tells us that in the year 1917 the Labour party had thought of all the schemes that have ever been put into operation. If they have had time to think out their schemes ever since the year 1917, they cannot expect that we are going to allow them to remain in office another seven years to think out something better.
All they can claim up to now is a decrease in the numbers of the unemployed, amounting to something less than we had last year in the same period, due to no action of the Government. Then, at the last moment, and probably after a stormy meeting with the Parliamentary Labour Committee, the right hon. Gentleman has once more gone through the Labour party's manifesto, and has told us, in a series of phrases which were repeated with considerable effect by the right hon. Member for Rusholme (Mr. Masterman) that in each case he is going into the whole subject for setting up a Committee of Inquiry to see what may be done at some time in the future.
Really, this is playing with the electorate. We are told when we criticise the Government that we are exploiting the situation for party purposes. The party opposite last year and the President of the Board of Trade denounced us for schemes which they declared to be totally inadequate. The right hon. Gentleman said that we ought to produce something ten times as great. He complained that we did not find work for dealing with unemployed women. What work has he found for dealing with unemployed women? Hon. Members opposite have no right to claim for themselves a consideration which they never extended to us. Our charge against them is that at the last Election they exploited the unemployed for their own purposes; and they are trying to exploit them now. We have had the Prime Minister telling the people of the Parliamentary Labour Club that they are amassing great reserves of armaments—they are all for disarmament except in this country—and that they are going to use them to the very last in the next Election.
That is their whole policy; it is all an electioneering policy. The Prime Minister's plan, as he has now disclosed it to us, is something better than the one he brought forward at the last election. At the last election he made promises, but at the next election he is going to keep them expecting. Certainly, the Debate this afternoon has given plenty of encouragement to those who feel that this is the great slogan for the Labour party—"Keep them expecting." Keep them expecting while the right hon. Gentleman sets up more Committees, while he goes into the whole question, while he begins to think what can be done, and while he plumes himself upon the policy of the Foreign Minister. It struck me, as I dare say it struck many hon. Members, what an extraordinary thing it was that in the whole of this Debate this afternoon, which began with that long dissertation upon foreign policy from the Minister of Labour and claiming success which we all hope will come to the Prime Minister, but it has not come yet. Others before him have started with equal hopes of attempting transformations in foreign policy. They have not always come off, and it is as well not to boast until you are quite certain. But is it not extraordinary that while the right hon. Gentleman devoted all this
time to foreign policy, and upon the important relations which we have with foreign countries, he forgot entirely to mention the subject of Imperial policy.

Mr. SHAW: The right hon. Gentleman will pardon me if I remind him that I devoted a special passage of my speech to Imperial and Dominion policy.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not remember. Perhaps hon. Members can remind me of what the right hon. Gentleman said. [HON. MEMBERS: "Textiles" and "India."]

Mr. SHAW: You heard me repeat it five minutes ago.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: What is the right hon. Gentleman's policy, then, in order to increase trade with the Dominions and Colonies? For, after all, I think the President of the Board of Trade told us last night that the exports of this country to the various parts of the Empire were actually greater than those to the whole of Europe. What are the Government doing to develop that trade? What credit can they take for the improved relations which they have brought about with the Governments of the Dominions? What is the moral gesture that they have made? [An HON. MEMBER: "Dry rot!"] Australia, Canada, Jamaica, British Guiana, one after the other—we read how motions are being tabled in the Legislatures, suggesting that they will have to reduce the preference which they give to our manufactures, and which are the cause of this tremendous trade, equal to our trade with the whole of Europe and exceeding it. They will have to reduce that in order to conform to the new policy, and the new gesture.

Mr. FINNEY: On a point of Order. What has this to do with the Vote under discussion?

An HON. MEMBER: McKenna Duties and Land Tax were ruled out on this discussion.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have said my say. It is a surprising thing to me that hon. Members who listened with avidity and with patience to stories all about relations with Russia want to stifle discussion the moment it becomes a question of the Empire. We charge against this Government that having gone to the electors with a definite pledge which put
unemployment and the cure of unemployment in front of their programme, they have done nothing to redeem their promises, and that so far as taking any positive action is concerned their action has been in the direction of reducing the employment already in existence. The hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour told us that the Prime Minister had fulfilled the pledge which he gave on taking office. What we want is the fulfilment of the pledges which he gave before he took office. Hon. Members sitting behind on those benches, after having been thoroughly cowed at a private meeting beforehand may pretend that they are satisfied. [Interruption.] We are not satisfied and the country will not be satisfied. We shall vote for the reduction of the salary of the Minister, who has not only not fulfilled his pledges, but has not even performed the ordinary duties of his office.

Mr. KEDWARD: I would like to draw attention to very definite specific

promises that were made at the last General Election by hon. Members who sit above the Gangway. I would remind them that this was the kind of thing that was said:
While working all the time for a co-operative commonwealth the party pledges itself, if returned to power,"—
[HON. MEMBERS: "Power!"]
immediately to deal with unemployment and to try to make life more tolerable for the poverty-stricken masses of the country. With regard to unemployment we shall utilise and organise all the resources of the nation, as was done during the War for the makers of munitions, to provide work for every unemployed man or woman. Work on a basis of national utility can be found if the Government so wills.

Mr. BALDWIN rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 210; Noes, 244.

Division No. 78.]
AYES.
[11.0 p.m.


Agg-Gardner, Rt. Hon. Sir James T.
Clayton, G. C.
Hartington, Marquess of


Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Cobb, Sir Cyril
Harvey, C. M. B. (Aberd'n & Kincardne)


Alexander, Brig.-Gen. Sir W. (Glas, C.)
Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.


Apsley, Lord
Cope, Major William
Herbert, Dennis (Hertlord, Watford)


Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.
Courthope, Lieut.-Col. George L.
Herbert, Capt. Sidney (Scarborough)


Aske, Sir Robert William
Cowan, Sir Wm. Henry (Islington, N.)
Hill-Wood, Major Sir Samuel


Atholl, Duchess of
Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.


Austin, Sir Herbert
Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)


Baird, Major Rt. Hon. Sir John L.
Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
Hogge, James Myles


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Cunliffe, Joseph Herbert
Hohler, Sir Gerald Fitzroy


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Curzon, Captain Viscount
Hood, Sir Joseph


Barnett, Major Richard W.
Dalkeith, Earl of
Hope, Rt. Hon. J. F. (Sheffield, C.)


Barnston, Major Sir Harry
Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)


Barrie, Sir Charles Coupar (Banff)
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Hore-Belisha, Major Leslie


Becker, Harry
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Horlick, Lieut.-Colonel J. N.


Beckett, Sir Gervase
Dawson, Sir Philip
Horne, Sir R. S. (Glasgow, Hillhead)


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Dixey, A. C.
Howard, Hn. D. (Cumberland, Northrn.)


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Doyle, Sir N. Grattan
Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Col. C. K.


Berry, Sir George
Duckworth, John
Hughes, Collingwood


Betterton, Henry B.
Eden, Captain Anthony
Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Huntingfield, Lord


Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.)
Elveden, Viscount
lliffe, Sir Edward M.


Blades, Sir George Rowland
England, Colonel A.
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.


Blundell, F. N.
Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.


Bowater, Sir T. Vansittart
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert


Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Ferguson, H.
Jenkins, W. A. (Brecon and Radnor)


Brass, Captain W.
FitzRoy, Captain Rt. Hon. Edward A.
Jephcott, A. R.


Brassey, Sir Leonard
Forestier-Walker, L.
Joynson-Hicks, Rt. Hon. Sir William


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Frece, Sir Walter de
Kay, Sir R. Newbald


Bullock, Captain M.
Gaibraith, J. F. W.
Kedward, R. M.


Burman, J. B.
Gates, Percy
Kindersley, Major G. M.


Butler, Sir Geoffrey
Gilmour, Colonel Rt. Hon. Sir John
King, Capt. Henry Douglas


Butt, Sir Alfred
Greene, W. P. Crawford
Lamb, J. Q.


Cassels, J. D.
Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)
Lane-Fox, George R.


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Gretton, Colonel John
Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
Guest, Capt. Hn. F. E. (Gloucstr., Stroud)
Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir P.


Cayzer, Maj. Sir Herbt. R. (Prtsmth. S.)
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. W. E.
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)
Gwynne, Rupert S.
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th)


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.)
Hacking, Captain Douglas H.
Lorimer, H. D.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm., W.)
Hall, Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. (Dulwich)
Lowe, Sir Francis William


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Lumley, L. R.


Chapman, Sir S.
Harland, A.
Lyle, Sir Leonard


Clarry, Reginald George
Harney, E. A.
MacDonald, R.


McLean, Major A.
Reid, D. D. (County Down)
Sutcliffe, T.


Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Remer, J. R.
Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.


McNeill, Rt. Hon. Ronald John
Rentoul, G. S.
Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)


Makins, Brigadier-General E.
Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)


Mason, Lieut.-Colonel Glyn K.
Richardson, Lt. Col. Sir P. (Chertsey)
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Milne, J. S. Wardlaw
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)
Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.


Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Robinson, W. E. (Burslem)
Ward, Lt.-Col. A. L. (Kingston-on-Hull)


Morrison-Bell, Major Sir A. C. (Honiton)
Ropner, Major L.
Warrender, Sir Victor


Nesbitt, Robert C.
Roundell, Colonel R. F.
Watson, Sir F. (Pudsey and Otley)


Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Wells, S. R.


Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)
Russell-Wells, Sir S. (London Univ.)
Weston, John Wakefield


Nicholson, O. (Westminster)
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Wheler, Lieut.-Col. Granville C. H.


Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)
Sandeman, A. Stewart
Wilson, Sir Charles H. (Leeds, Central)


Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.
Wilson, Col. M. J. (Richmond)


Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Savery, S. S.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Pease, William Edwin
Scott, Sir Leslie (Liverp'l, Exchange)
Wise, Sir Fredric


Pennefather, Sir John
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)
Wolmer, Viscount


Penny, Frederick George
Smith-Carington, Neville W.
Wood, Major Rt. Hon. Edward F. L.


Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, West)


Perkins, Colonel E. K.
Somerville, Daniel (Barrow-in-Furness)
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Perring, William George
Spender-Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H.
Wragg, Herbert


Phllipson, Mabel
Spero, Dr. G. E.
Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward


Pielou, D. P.
Stanley, Lord
Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.


Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton
Steel, Samuel Strang



Rankin, James S.
Stewart, Maj. R. S. (Stockton-on-Tees)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:—


Rees, Sir Beddoe
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Commander B. Eyres-Monsell and




Colonel Gibbs.


NOES.


Adamson, Rt. Hon. William
Falconer, J.
Lansbury, George


Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)
Finney, V. H.
Laverack, F. J.


Alden, Percy
Foot, Isaac
Law, A.


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Franklin, L. B.
Lawrence, Susan (East Ham, North)


Alstead, R.
Gardner, B. W. (West Ham, Upton)
Lawson, John James


Ammon, Charles George
Gardner, J. P. (Hammersmith, North)
Leach, W.


Attlee, Major Clement R.
Gavan-Duffy, Thomas
Lessing, E.


Ayles, W. H.
George, Major G. L. (Pembroke)
Lindley, F. W.


Baker, Walter
Gillett, George M.
Livingstone, A. M.


Banton, G.
Gosling, Harry
Loverseed, J. F.


Barker, G. (Momnouth, Abertillery)
Gould, Frederick (Somerset, Frome)
Lowth, T.


Barnes, A.
Greenall, T.
Lunn, William


Batey, Joseph
Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
McEntee, V. L.


Berkeley, Captain Reginald
Groves, T.
Macfadyen, E.


Black, J. W.
Grundy, T. W.
Mackinder, W.


Bondfield, Margaret
Guest, J. (York, W. R. Hemsworth)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)


Bonwick, A.
Guest, Dr. L. Haden (Southwark, N.)
Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Maden, H.


Briant, Frank
Hardie, George D.
Mansel, Sir Courtenay


Broad, F. A.
Harris, Percy A.
March, S.


Bromfield, William
Hartshorn, Rt. Hon. Vernon
Marley, James


Brown, A. E. (Warwick, Rugby)
Harvey, T. E. (Dewsbury)
Martin, F. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, E.)


Buchanan, G.
Hastings, Sir Patrick
Martin, W. H. (Dumbarton)


Buckle, J.
Hastings, Somerville (Reading)
Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G.


Burnie, Major J. (Bootle)
Haycock, A. W.
Middleton, G.


Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel
Hayday, Arthur
Millar, J. D.


Cape, Thomas
Hayes, John Henry (Edge Hill)
Mills, J. E.


Chapple, Dr. William A.
Healy, Cahir
Montague, Frederick


Charleton, H. C.
Hemmerde, E. G.
Morel, E. D.


Church, Major A. G.
Henderson, A. (Cardiff, South)
Morris, R. H.


Clarke, A.
Henderson, T. (Glasgow)
Morrison, Herbert (Hackney, South)


Climie, R.
Henderson, W. W. (Middlesex, Enfld.)
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)


Cluse, W. S.
Hillary, A. E.
Morse, W. E.


Clynes, Rt Hon. John R.
Hindle, F.
Mosley, Oswald


Compton, Joseph
Hirst, G. H.
Moulton, Major Fletcher


Comyns-Carr, A. S.
Hothouse, A. L.
Murray, Robert


Costello, L. W. J.
Hodge, Lieut.-Col J. P. (Preston)
Murrell, Frank


Cove, W. G.
Hodges, Frank
Naylor, T. E.


Crittall, V. G.
Hoffman, P. C.
Nichol, Robert


Darbishire, C. W.
Hudson, J. H.
Nixon, H.


Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)
Isaacs, G. A.
O'Connor, Thomas P.


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Jackson, R. F. (Ipswich)
O'Grady, Captain James


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Oliver, George Harold


Dickie, Captain J. P.
Jewson, Dorothea
Oliver, P. M. (Manchester, Blackley)


Dickson, T.
John, William (Rhondda, West)
O'Neill, John Joseph


Dodds, S. R.
Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)
Owen, Major G.


Dukes, C.
Jones, Rt. Hon. Leif (Camborne)
Paling, W.


Dunnico, H.
Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Jowett, Rt. Hon. F. W. (Bradford, E.)
Parry, Thomas Henry


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, Southern)
Jowltt, W. A. (The Hartlepools)
Pattinson, S. (Horncastle)


Egan, W. H.
Kennedy, T.
Perry, S. F.


Emlyn-Jones, J. E. (Dorset, N.)
Kenyon, Barnet
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.




Pilkington, R. R.
Smith, T. (Pontefract)
Wallhead, Richard C.


Ponsonby, Arthur
Smith, W. R. (Norwich)
Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen


Potts, John S.
Snell, Harry
Ward, G. (Leicester, Bosworth)


Purcell, A. A.
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip
Warne, G. H.


Raffan, P. W.
Spears, Brig. Gen. E. L.
Watson, W. M. (Duntermline)


Raffety, F. W.
Spence, R.
Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda)


Ramage, Captain Cecil Beresford
Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)
Webb, Lieut.-Col. Sir H. (Cardiff, E.)


Rathbone, Hugh R.
Stamford, T. W.
Webb, Rt. Hon. Sidney


Raynes, W. R.
Starmer, Sir Charles
Wedgwood, Col. Rt. Hon. Josiah C.


Rendall, A.
Stephen, Campbell
Weir, L. M.


Richards, R.
Stewart, J. (St. Roffox)
Welsh, J. C.


Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Stranger, Innes Harold
Westwood, J.


Ritson, J.
Sullivan, J.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. J.


Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)
Sunlight, J.
White, H. G. (Birkenhead, E.)


Robinson, S. W. (Essex, Chelmsford)
Sutton, J. E.
Whiteley, W.


Romeril, H. G.
Tattersall, J. L.
Wignall, James


Rose, Frank H.
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)
Williams, Lt.-Col. T. S. B. (Kennington)


Royce, William Stapleton
Thompson, Piers G. (Torquay)
Williams, Maj. A. S. (Kent, Sevenoaks)


Royle, C.
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)
Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)


Samuel, H. Walter (Swansea, West)
Thornton, Maxwell R.
Willison, H.


Scrymgeour, E.
Thurtle, E.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Scurr, John
Tillett, Benjamin
Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)


Seely, H. M. (Norfolk, Eastern)
Tinker, John Joseph
Windsor, Walter


Sexton, James
Tout, W. J.
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. C. P.
Woodwark, Lieut.-Colonel G. G.


Sherwood, George Henry
Turner, Ben
Young, Andrew (Glasgow, Partick)


Shinwell, Emanuel
Varley, Frank B.



Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Viant, S. P.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Smillie, Robert
Vivian, H.
Mr. Spoor and Mr. Frederick Hall.


Smith, Ben (Bermondsey, Rotherhithe)

Question again proposed. Debate resumed.

Several HON. MEMBERS rose.

It being after Eleven o'Clock, the CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next (26th May).

The remaining Order were read, and postponed.

ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. F. Hall]

Adjourned accordingly at Twelve Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.